


The Hunter's Child

by Feynite



Series: Sharkbait [2]
Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Alternate Universe, Looking Glass, Original Characters - Freeform, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-11
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-01 17:15:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 28
Words: 71,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6528832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feynite/pseuds/Feynite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So, on my tumblr I got asked what might happen if Lavellan had via the wondrous convenience of inexplicable magic been sent back to ancient times as a fully ancient elvhen infant instead of her typical self. This lead to, essentially, three speculative plotlines wherein she was taken in and cared for by different people.</p><p>Herein we have the prompt fills for the speculative timeline where Andruil found Lavellan, decided who would raise her via the a tournament (because of course), and bequeathed her to Uthvir. Who promptly took her to Thenvunin, because Uthvir's experience in keeping things alive is significantly less robust than their experience in killing them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Early Impressions

**Author's Note:**

> Absolutely do not read this at all even a little bit if you want to preserve the image presented by Uthvir and Thenvunin in Looking Glass' main, canonical story.

Uthvir looks at the baby.

The baby looks at Uthvir.

Their first week of parenthood, Uthvir had essentially done very little. The hunters who had been taking care of the infant prior to their ‘victory’ had been content to carry on doing so. She was really more like a sort of communal, when it came to it, no matter whose name was on her guardianship papers.

Andruil had apparently determined that this scenario was too comfortable and easy for Uthvir, however. They had been commanded to take ‘responsibility’.

At least the baby seems to find this scenario as dubious as they do.

“Food,” Uthvir decides.

The baby nods, clumsily, as if to agree that this in order. Well; it has finished sleeping. Uthvir at least knows enough to know that baby things usually spend the majority of their time either eating, sleeping, or shitting, and since it is not doing two of those things, then the third remains.

They retrieve one of the bottles of formula which they have been provided with, and after a moment’s consideration, hand it to the baby.

The baby, to its credit, does its best to get the nipple into its mouth. But its coordination is not much to speak of. Uthvir is a bit aghast. Baby _deer_  can feed themselves, but apparently for baby elves that is a bridge too far. They reach over and help, lifting the bottle so that the infant can drink more easily.

“There,” they drawl, unimpressed.

They blink when they realize the baby is crying.

Not wailing sobs, such as those it had made in the first few days after Andruil brought it back from her hunt. It continues to the drink from the bottle. Just, large, fat tears track down its cheeks as it does. It blinks, tiny hands reaching up to help hold the bottle, and very quietly, it cries.

Uthvir checks it for injuries. After a moment, they glance at themselves; holding the bottle out at a distance, dressed in their typical attire. They… are not providing a very comforting image, they suppose.

Carefully, they reach over, and brush one of the infant’s cheeks.

“It is not so bad,” they say. “You will get bigger. And I _will_  look after you, until you do. It is only temporary, little one.”

The baby blinks at them, and the tears do seem to slow a bit.

“Besides, I may not be the best for… some things, but I am a very accomplished hunter. When you are big enough to handle yourself, I will show you how to kill things. It is much harder to feel distressed when you can kill most everyone in a room,” they promise. “And there is much to recommend hunting. If you think this bottle business is miserable, I am certain you will feel much better after spit-roasting your first elk.”

The baby blinks again; of course, it probably does not understand a word they are saying.

Still.

Talking seems to distract from tears, at least.

Uthvir supposes there is no harm in it.


	2. Naming

Uthvir does not really consider the matter of names, at first.

The baby is a baby. It is the only baby in the vicinity; ergo, it makes sense to just call it what it is. Baby. Infant. Child. Tiny, soft, dependant person who cannot feed or dress themselves yet. Even once the hunter brings her to Thenvunin to try and sort out this mysterious crying business, they have not given the matter much thought. People do not really need names until they need to be called, do they? Considering the baby cannot even walk yet, Uthvir doubts she can get far enough away to require verbal summoning; and even if she could, she would not be able to answer it.

Thenvunin disagrees.

“You have not  _named_  her?” the man asks, aghast.

They are in Arlathan, in Mythal’s city estate, and more specifically, in Thenvunin’s chambers. After a flurry of activity involving elves whom Uthvir did not recognize, and much fussing and cooing and the occasional bout of horror as they explained the whole ‘won a baby in a tournament’ situation, they had been left alone to ‘discuss matters’. Thenvunin looks bizarrely comfortable with a baby in his arms. He has only just finished fussing over her clothes and feeding her.

“Is that important?” Uthvir wonders. Spirits just get called what they are. Even spirits who take bodies often hang onto those names. It is simpler that way.

Thenvunin looks at them, and shakes his head.

“…Alright. I cannot, in good conscience, allow this to go on,” the man decides, looking between the hunter and the baby. “You are getting a leave of absence from Andruil and you are coming and staying with me, until I am confident you can take care of this child without getting her killed. And you are naming her.”

Uthvir shifts, not quite certain if they are offended or relieved. After a moment, they look away, and tsk. 

“Well, I do have much more experience in killing things than in keeping them alive,” they concede.

Thenvunin nods, apparently satisfied enough with that, and turns to look more fully at the baby again.

“Poor baby. Do not worry. Uncle Thenvunin will help get things sorted,” he croons. The baby, in Uthvir’s opinion, looks a little dubious about this; but she only presses a tiny fist to her mouth, and stares up at the strange man who has, if nothing else, done an acceptable job of feeding and calming her. Thenvunin brushes a hand over her head, and makes several ridiculous baby-noises at her.

Still.

Uthvir cannot escape the impression that this was probably a good idea.

 

~

 

“Asha,” they suggest, as Thenvunin hands them a bottle, and promptly changes the angle of their arm.

“ _Woman?_  No. And why are you in armour? It is barely past dawn; where are you going that you need all that?” he asks. He had taken one look at him when he got up this morning, and promptly wrapped the baby in three more blankets before - reluctantly - handing her to them.

Uthvir just rolls their eyes.

“Mi,” they try.

“You are not calling a baby ‘Blade’,” Thenvunin sniffs.

“Ashami? Miasha?” they try. “Linmi?”

“ _Bloodied Blade?_  No! These are all terrible names!”

The baby looks fairly neutral in opinion on them, in fact. She reaches for the bottle with her tiny hands, and helps bring it to her mouth, apparently more concerned with breakfast at the moment. She had done well enough for spending the night in a crib in the guest room with Uthvir. Even despite Thenvunin coming in at three separate points during the night to ‘check on’ her.

“Then you suggest something,” Uthvir says, dismissively.

“Well. I did have a thought,” Thenvunin admits. Of course he did. “Thenerassulahn.”

The baby pauses, her mouth going a little bit slack. The nipple of the bottle slips, as Uthvir raises an eyebrow.

“No,” they say.

Thenvunin bristles.

“ _Dreamsong_  is a fine name!” he insists.

“It is ridiculous,” Uthvir counters. “Look at her. She is so tiny; what would she do with all that name?”

“It is much better than _Linmi,”_  Thenvunin insists.

The baby gives Uthvir a worried look.

“Do not fret,” they tell her, angling the bottle back towards her. “I will not let Thenvunin give you a ridiculous name like the one he has.”

The man in question huffs in wounded indignation.

 

~

 

It is the middle of the night, and the baby is crying.

Not loudly. She rarely cries loudly, with the piercing wails that Uthvir has heard ascribed to infants in text and dreams. But her distress is palpable, and when they get up to check on her, they find her eyes are open and watery. When her misery does not abate, they go and get Thenvunin; who takes one look at her and starts making sympathetic noises, and picks her up and checks her diaper, and then presses her to his shoulder.

Somehow this evolves into Thenvunin pacing slowly back and forth through the guest room, while Uthvir stands awkwardly to the side.

“Perhaps I should call her Numin,” the hunter suggests.

“Only if you never want her to outgrow this,” Thenvunin says, in a voice still slightly low and rough from sleep.

Uthvir folds their arms.

“A fair point,” they concede.

There is something… unexpectedly compelling about this image, though. Thenvunin, in his fluttery lavender pyjamas, holding the baby close. Soft light streaming in from the halls and windows. The hush of their voices, low as if to avoid being overheard, even though everyone in the room is quite fully awake; infant included.

Moving forward, Uthvir reaches out, and gingerly rests a hand on the back of the baby’s head. Thenvunin stops moving.

“Why is she so miserable?” they wonder. 

Thenvunin looks at them for a moment, and then sighs.

“She is a baby, Uthvir. The world is strange and confusing. Any number of things could have upset her, and they might seem perfectly innocuous to you or I. But to her they are unfathomable and frightening,” he reasons. “She just needs comfort. She needs to know someone will come and help her when she is unhappy. That is all.”

Someone will come…

“You are good at this,” Uthvir says.

Thenvunin blinks at them, rapidly. Then he tilts his chin upwards.

“Naturally. I have a talent for empathy, you know,” he asserts. “Animals can sense it. It is why they like me.”

“Perhaps,” the hunter allows.

To their surprise, his cheeks actually darken a little bit at the concession, and he swallows.

“Yes. Well. Yes. Of course, having a baby is different. Not that I… not that I do. But helping with one. That is different, too,” he declares.

The baby lets out a sigh, and curls a fist into his collar, as if to request that they both stop talking now, please. And they do; tapering off into silence, until the cloud of misery around her begins to abate. Slowly but surely, the tears stop. She slips off to sleep once more.

Thenvunin drops a kiss to the top of her head before settling her gently back into her crib.

Uthvir goes back to bed, and spends more time thinking than resting.

 

~

 

“If you want to, you can name her,” the hunter decides.

Both baby and Thenvunin look up from where Thenvunin has been trying to wrestle her into a fluffy pillow of fabric that is ostensibly a dress.

Thenvunin gapes.

The baby looks vaguely betrayed.

When he recovers, he stares at Uthvir for a long moment.

“You hate all the names I have suggested,” he points out. He has paused in his efforts long enough for the baby to wrestle a clump of fabric out of his hands, though, and then promptly toss the dress towards the floor. It only forces Thenvunin to tut and pick it up again, though.

Uthvir shrugs.

“Yes. That is very true. But you have been looking after her more than I have, these days. So I suppose if you wanted to name her, that would be fair. And if you… had an interest in having your name added to the parental rights, that would also be fair. Considering. If you had an interest. Most children do have more than one parent, after all.”

They look away, for a moment.

There is silence.

When they glance back, Thenvunin is staring at the baby. He turns towards them, and then back to the baby, who has gone quiet herself.

“It is a substantial commitment. I do not need your answer right this minute, and I understand if-”

“Yes,” Thenvunin says. Then he straightens, and swallows. “Yes to both. I accept your offer.”

Uthvir’s mouth snaps shut. 

They nod in acceptance.

“Good,” they say.

 

~

 

“Lathmirthadra,” Thenvunin suggests.

The baby, lost in the ruffly dress that she had lost the battle against keeping off of her, makes a displeased sound.

Uthvir watches in amusement. They had anticipated a swift end to the naming debate once Thenvunin had accepted their offer; but the man seems intent upon choosing a name that ‘suits’ the baby, and so far this has evolved into a lot of strange back-and-forth between the two of them. The baby rejects everything, of course. Uthvir has begun to suspect that she just enjoys being contrary. Or riling her new parent.

They can sympathize. Thenvunin is quite amusing when flustered.

Today, it seems, the names are on the ‘L’ spectrum.

“Lastheneras?” Thenvunin suggests.

The baby makes another disapproving noise, and yanks at one of her ruffles.

“Try something shorter,” Uthvir suggests.

Thenvunin sighs, but actually does seem to give it some consideration.

“Lavlen,” he tries.

The baby stills; her eyes go wide, and she turns her head to look at Thenvunin, mouth slack.

Thenvunin blinks at the abrupt departure from her usual reactions.

“…Lavlen?” he repeats.

The baby lets loose an interested-sounding burble, and reaches a hand towards him.

“Ba, ba ba, ba,” she enthuses, clearly excited. Her little legs kick.

“I think she likes that one,” Uthvir notes.

Thenvunin beams, but then hesitates.

“The structure is not quite fluid enough for a proper name, though,” he decides.

The baby waves, as if in agreement, smacking her hands against the side of her dress.

“Lavlen… Lavellan?” Thenvunin ventures.

A happy laugh bursts from her; the giddiest sound Uthvir has ever heard her make. The baby reaches towards Thenvunin, fingers flexing, burbling in cheerful exaltation. The air around her whirls with joy. It is a remarkably positive response that takes both adults aback.

“…She approves,” Uthvir ventures.

Thenvunin reaches over and scoops her up, arms full of soft, fluttery fabric and happy, babbling infant.

“Lavellan?” he says again.

‘Lavellan’ pats his face.

“Ba! Da ba!” she exclaims, loudly.

Thenvunin laughs in delight of his own.

“Lavellan,” he concludes. “Hello, Lavellan.”


	3. Hunting

“Alright, baby,” Uthvir says. They are at the edge of one of Mythal’s larger gardens. This one has a great deal of animals in it. Small lizards, and colourful frogs, and birds, and squirrels. 

Carefully, they set their toddler down at the edge of the path. Near to one of the shallow ponds.

“Now. The first lesson in hunting is sneaking up on your prey,” they say, while the baby looks up at them curiously. “You are not going to do very well at this, at first. You are clumsy, and compared to the tiny animals in this garden, you lumber like a noisy giant. But that is what practice is for. If you can bring me back one of those frogs, I will get Papa to stop putting you in ruffles.”

It is a ridiculous promise, of course. Their baby can only barely understand speech at this age, they have been assured; but that is beside the point. She is smart. She looks over the frogs, and then back at him; and then she lifts herself onto her wobbly, stumpy little legs, and sets off in the direction of the pond.

She’s doing better than Uthvir expected. She seems to be aware of her shadow, and even though she is still clumsy, she moves slowly, which gives the frogs more of a chance to become accustomed to her presence before she lunges for them. She’d have no hope relying on speed alone; it is a good choice, even if it is probably accidental.

But they are barely a few minutes into it before some irate gardener is rushing across the grounds. The elf scoops up Uthvir’s baby, who lets out a startled cry; and Uthvir is moving before they can think twice, drawing a knife.

“You put her down!” they snap.

The gardener freezes.

“She was going to fall in!”

“She was fine. Put. Her. Down,” Uthvir says, surprised at how on edge they feel.

The gardener eyes the knife in their hand, and slowly lowers their baby back down to the grass.

The baby sighs, and toddles over to Uthvir, who scoops her up with their free arm.

“Do not touch my child without permission again,” the hunter warns.

Then they sheath their knife, and head back towards the frogs.


	4. Cuddly Hunter Naps

Uthvir is asleep.

Lavellan stares.

It suddenly occurs to her that in the several months she’s spent in their care, she hasn’t _actually_  seen Uthvir sleep before. She’s been aware of them (probably) sleeping in the same room as her. But every time she’s woken up, they’ve been awake; and every time she’s fallen asleep, they’ve been awake, still.

That was the case this time. She’d known it was the usual time for her nap, in the dim recesses of her mind. But she’d also been caught up with another bout of frustration and despair. Thenvunin is gone; she’s not quite sure where. But Uthvir had picked her up, and set about walking around the room like Thenvunin usually did. There had been no cooing, but that was alright. Lavellan doesn’t really need the baby-talk anyway.

She had finally given in to her body’s demands for sleep and fallen into unconsciousness against the hunter’s shoulder.

And now she’s awake. Awake and on their bed, she realizes, still pressed to their chest, while the hunter breathes steadily beside her.

Huh.

They look a lot… softer, when they’re asleep, she decides. She holds still so as not to disturb them, and lets herself derive what comfort she can from the general feeling of closeness. Mostly this new life is rife with frustrations and unease, but it’s not all bad, she supposes. It’s been a long time since she felt relatively safe and looked-after.

The whisper-quiet sound of the door opening catches her attention.

Uthvir’s eyes open, suddenly awake, and the hunter sits up. They blink down at her, and then look across. the room. She moves enough to follow their gaze, and sees Thenvunin standing in the doorway.

“Where you napping?” he asks, quietly.

“She was. I was just lying with her,” Uthvir says, swiftly. The hunter straightens themselves and picks her up, before carrying her over to Thenvunin.

“I will go and get her lunch,” the declares.

Thenvunin blinks, and then looks down at her.

“They were asleep, too, were they not?” he asks.

 _Oh yeah,_  she thinks. _Down for the count. It’s a shame you missed it; I think you would have liked Cuddly Hunter Nap Times._

Thenvunin nods, as if he understood that, and then sighs.


	5. Age

“How old are you?” Lavellan wonders.

She has been asking a lot about matters pertaining to age and lifespan, of late. The current point of interest for her, Thenvunin supposes. He smiles, and drops a kiss to the top of her head, before he goes back to brushing her hair.

“Two thousand, six hundred and twelve,” he tells her. “That makes me two thousand, six hundred and six years older than you.”

Lavellan tilts her head, and looks up at him.

“That is a lot to wrap my head around,” she says.

“It is not so much, when you have lived it,” Thenvunin assures her.

“How old is Uthvir?” she wonders.

He pauses, the brush stalling for a moment in her hair, before he resumes its smooth, gentle motions.

“You know, I do not actually know?” he admits. “I think they are a bit younger than me. Probably not by much, though.”

Frowning thoughtfully, Lavellan waits until the brush has passed to the bottom of her head, and then stands up.

Thenvunin blinks.

“Where are you going?” he asks.

“I want to ask Uthvir how old they are,” she replies.

Well. Thenvunin supposes that heading one room over to ask a question is not a substantial breach in bedtime preparations. He puts down the brush, and follows Lavellan out of the room. Her small feet pad across the multicoloured floor as she makes her way to Uthvir’s room, where the hunter is tending to their armour.

“Uthvir!” Lavellan calls, from the doorway.

They look up.

“How old are you?” she asks.

The hunter pauses, clearly not quite expecting the question, but not visibly bothered by it, either.

“Three hundred years, give or take,” they say.

Thenvunin stills.

Wait.

_What?_

_“_ That cannot be right!” he blurts.

Lavellan blinks at him. So, too, does Uthvir.

“I think Uthvir knows how old they are,” his daughter says. Which is… a fair observation, Thenvunin supposes. But still. Three hundred? Three _hundred?_  Uthvir is less than a thousand years old? Uthvir is roughly two thousand and three hundred years younger than Thenvunin? When Thenvunin was two thousand years old, Uthvir did not _exist?_ When they first met, Uthvir was two hundred years old? Thenvunin let a two hundred year old pin him to the ground and…

Reaching up, Lavellan tugs at his arm.

“Papa? You still with us?”

He snaps almost violently away from his current train of thought, and turns to look at his daughter.

“Fine! I am fine!” he declares.

Lavellan frowns, just slightly. She looks back at Uthvir, and then at Thenvunin. Leaning forward, she gives him a quick hug.

“I am going to bed,” she declares.

“I will tuck you in,” Thenvunin says, and though she - inexplicably - tries to tell him that is not necessary, he walks her back to her room, and keeps his mind firmly on the matter at hand as he fluffs her pillows and pulls the blankets up around her, and kisses her forehead.

When he withdraws from the room, Uthvir is waiting for him in the hall.

He stalls.

The hunter gives him a long look, and then smirks, and shakes their head.

“How old did you think I was?” they ask.

Thenvunin swallows.

“I had assumed that you were my peer,” he admits.

Up goes one of Uthvir’s eyebrows.

“I _am_  your peer,” they say. 

“You are three hundred years old!” Thenvunin hisses. “Why are you - how did you - “ 

Striding forward, Uthvir backs him into the wall, and kisses him.

The hunter pins his wrists back and presses firmly up against him, sucking his lower lip between their teeth and nicking it with their sharp points, before delving into Thenvunin’s mouth with their tongue. They grind their hips against him, and dig their nails into his wrists, and do not let up until Thenvunin is straining against the confines of his clothes, and an electric heat is pulsing under his skin.

Then they leans back only long enough to move their lips to his neck instead; and they bite down, there, sharp teeth burning as they break Thenvunin’s skin. It is painful, of course. Of course it is painful. Being bitten is not an enjoyable experience; Uthvir laves over the wound with their tongue, and the skin burns with _pain,_  not… anything else.

Thenvunin recovers enough sense to recall that they are right outside _Lavellan’s bedroom._

 _“Uthvir,”_  he hisses.

The hunter grabs his belt, by way of reply, and for a moment he is alarmed and uncertain and his gaze darts towards their daughter’s closed door; but then the hunter moves back, and starts dragging him - by the belt - further down the hall.

Thenvunin goes along with it, because it is taking him further away from the disastrous impropriety of - of _necking_ outside a child’s room.

Once they are far enough away, though, he protests.

“Can you not keep your hands off of me for three seconds?!” he demands. “What if Lavellan had gotten up to see what that strange sound was?”

“Then she would have seen her nanae kissing her papa; oh, such scandal,” Uthvir replies, rolling their eyes. They continue, relentless, and drag Thenvunin into his own bedroom.

“This is not - Uthvir!” Thenvunin protests, as the hunter closes the door behind them, and then pins him to it. How many times have they done this? Thenvunin thinks he has lost count. He has had sex so many times with a three hundred year old that he has _lost count._

 _“You are three hundred!”_  he hisses.

“Not all of us are fine wines, Thenvunin,” Uthvir replies, undoing his belt. The hunter winks. “Some of us do just as well without any fermentation.”

“That - you - no!” Thenvunin snaps.

With a sigh, Uthvir looks up at him. Their hands move away from his belt. The hunter places them on either side of him, instead, and tilts their face up towards his. There is a question in their eyes. It looks distinctly condescending, which is ridiculous, because Uthvir has absolutely no business condescending to someone _thousands_  of years older than them.

“What, precisely, is the problem?” they wonder.

Of course they would have to ask that. The problem should be readily apparent to anyone with an ounce of decency in them. Not that Uthvir is not sufficiently of age for… and not that it is uncommon, precisely, for elves with substantial gaps to… well. But.

_Three hundred._

When Thenvunin was three hundred, he would never have _dreamed_  of doing what Uthvir does to someone of his age. Not that he would want to, of course. But even if he did, he would never have… but then, when he was three hundred, he had not yet attained his current rank. And certainly, he was much more mindful of socially acceptable behaviour than _Uthvir,_  who barely pays common decency any mind, and just rushes headlong towards their own base desires.

After a moment, Uthvir sighs, and then tsk’s.

“It seems I shall have to assert some dominance, if I am to maintain respectability in your eyes,” the hunter says. There is a definite gleam to their gaze.

“As if you’ve _ever_ had any respectability in my eyes!” Thenvunin huffs, and tells himself that the feeling that just bolted straight through him was dread.

“What do you say if you want me to stop?” Uthvir asks, pulling Thenvunin away from the door.

“I say ‘stop’, and you ignore me, you insufferable-”

Uthvir stops.

“The word, Thenvunin,” they demand, sharp and unyielding, as they stare fixedly at him.

He swallows.

“Starling,” he says.

With a wicked grin, Uthvir bears him down to the bed.


	6. Walking

Mastering walking again is much more difficult than one would expect. Lavellan is practising the matter carefully, getting onto wobbly legs and using a footstool for support, while traversing the varied terrain of Thenvunin’s bedroom. It’s early morning. A slow and rather sedate one, in fact, and Uthvir had just given her breakfast and then left her with her ‘papa’ to go and see if they’ve gotten any missives. The sun is bright, streaming in through the windows, and Thenvunin is frowning at himself in a mirror.

All in all, a pretty normal morning.

When she hears a particularly heavy sigh, she looks over to see that frowning at the mirror has progressed to outright scowling at it, as Thenvunin tugs at the collar of the outfit he’s trying on, and pats down the fabric across his shoulders. After a moment he shakes his head, and takes off the shirt.

“Such a nice colour, but the cut is all wrong,” he bemoans, with another headshake. 

Lavellan stares at him.

Normally, she doesn’t much care for the man’s tastes in clothes - especially hers - but in this case, she’s inclined to disagree. That shirt had looked nice on him, she’d thought. It had tapered very well, and given him a striking, sculpted sort of look. The fabric is a shimmery dark green, that brightens where it’s touched, but unlike most greens hadn’t managed to make him look washed-out.

“Papa!” she calls.

Thenvunin turns towards her.

Carefully, she lets go of the footstool. Okay. This is doable. She can do this; this man needs to stop being so ridiculous over himself. She wobbles a little, but then manages to take one step. And then another. Her centre of balance is way off, but perseverance is key. She keeps her hands out, and focuses, and eventually she finds herself adjusting. Another step, and then another, and she looks up and sees that Thenvunin has dropped to his knees and is watching her in amazement.

Not necessarily what she was going for. Mostly she’d just wanted to get over to him. But still, at least he’s not glaring at his reflection anymore.

When she finally gets to him, he closes his arms around her and lifts her straight up.

“You crossed the whole room!” he exclaims, before pressing a flurry of kisses to her head, and booping her on the nose. “Look at you! You did it so easily!”

His eyes are suspiciously shiny.

This man.

Reaching out, Lavellan pats his cheek, and then boops his nose in retaliation.

“Papa, doo look pre’y,” she manages, with an internal sigh at her persistent linguistic ineptitude. She reaches for the discarded shirt. Pointedly.

Thenvunin gets it, though. His expression shifts, and some of the excitement in him goes all tender instead, and he plants another kiss to her forehead.

“Not as pretty as my little heart,” he says, and leaning down, picks up the shirt. “Did you like this, Lavellan? Maybe Papa could have the tailors make you something out of this fabric. Maybe you would actually wear it without trying to rip pieces of it off.” The last bit he adds in a quiet aside to himself.

Lavellan gives him her best look of complete and total innocence. When he can stuff her into something that _doesn’t_  impede her already limited mobility, then they’ll talk. Uthvir dressed her this morning, which means she’s basically in a long shirt and shorts, and that suits her just fine.

“No. _Papa_  ook pre’y. Inna green.”

Thenvunin tilts his head, and smiles gently at her.

“My baby likes green, hmm?” he asks.

If she could manage it, she’d roll her eyes at him.

“Papa. You. You, you, _you_ inna green.” she insists, grasping at the shirt and moving it over to his chest. Just put the damn thing on, Thenvunin, for pity’s sake.

“If ‘you’ replaces ‘no’ as your new favourite word, I will count it as an improvement,” he mutters.

She huffs.

“’Diculous man,” she mumbles.

Thenvunin actually _does_ roll his eyes, because he’s not a baby and his coordination hasn’t been shot all to hell by time travel and re-embodiment or shape-changing or whatever actually happened to her.

“ _Uthvir,”_  he tsk’s.


	7. Bonding

“Nenuvin,” Lavellan manages to spit out, her brows furrowed in concentration, a tiny cloud of frustration drifting about her. She has been trying to get this hellish name right for _weeks_  now, but her stupid mouth refuses to cooperate.

Uthvir snorts. Because they are kind of an asshole.

“ _Papa,”_ Thenvunin corrects, for the fifty billionth time, as he presses a hand to his chest.

“Nen… den… denvu…” Lavellan attempts, before letting out a frustrated huff. Thenvunin is starting to look crestfallen again. She can see it on his face. It’s his ‘why doesn’t the baby act like a normal baby?’ look. Also his ‘why doesn’t the baby like me more?’ look, and his ‘where am I going wrong with my weird baby?’ look. 

 _Fine,_ she decides. Forget it. If it matters _that_  much, and if the man is going to have a ridiculous name anyway…

She lets out another huff.

“Papa,” she relents.

Thenvunin lights up. He _beams_  at her, the hand on his chest clasping the fabric over his heart, and then he whips around and looks at Uthvir.

“Uthvir! Uthvir, did you hear that?! She said it! She called me Papa!”

“Well it is easier than ‘Thenvunin’,” Uthvir drawls; but they are smiling, just the tiniest bit. Thenvunin turns back to her, still beaming, unrepentantly happy as he reaches over and - no _don’t_  - damn. Squeezes her cheeks. She bats at his hands until he lets go of her face, but he just picks her up again, squishing her to him.

“Say it again! Say ‘Papa’!” he requests, joggling her a bit.

“No,” she tells him.

Uthvir snickers, while Thenvunin pouts.

“She always goes back to that one,” he complains. Then he sighs, and glances between herself and Uthvir. After a moment, he points towards the hunter.

“Nanae,” he says.

She blinks.

What the heck is _that_  word?

Thenvunin points at Uthvir again, and repeats it. “Nanae.” Then he points at himself. “Papa.”

Oh. Probably some sort of gender neutral parental title, then.

She points at Uthvir.

“Uvir,” she declares. She maybe hasn’t gotten it down _perfectly,_  but her mouth is having trouble with ‘th’ sounds, currently. It’s minor a technical difficulty. Nowhere near as bad as trying to spit out ‘Thenvunin’. She can keep with it.

“So I am,” Uthvir agrees.

Thenvunin gives a long-suffering glance to the both of them. Lavellan offers him a pat on the shoulder.

“Papa,” she repeats, as consolation.

 

~

 

She is tired, and small, and everything is frustrating, and nothing makes sense. She has been living and growing in the ancient world for a few years now, and she is sick of it. Sick of all of it. She wants her life back; she wants her _home_ back. And she wants her damn body back.

Thenvunin is good for moments like these. He’ll buy whatever excuse she has for being upset, and let her just hug him for a while, until the despair passes and she can function again. But Thenvunin is currently running an ‘important errand’, and will be gone for three weeks. Much to his distress more than anyone else’s, it had seemed; though now that she’s in Andruil’s holdings with just Uthvir, and the hunters fawning over her in their bizarre ways, she finds she misses him and his airy gardens and his birds more than she expected to.

 _Suck it up,_  she tells herself, and forces her way onto her feet, to get ready for the day.

She gets as far as the main living area of Uthvir’s chambers before her stupid developing body and its stupid lack of emotional restraint gives out on her, and she ends up slumping down onto the floor, bawling her eyes out.

Okay.

She can work with this.

Just cry it out, and _then_ get up and tackle the day.

She doesn’t even realize Uthvir is there until she sees the shadows in front of her shift, and she blinks through the bleary film of tears to find them looking down at her; brows furrowed, frowning. They haven’t put their armour on yet; so at least they aren’t looming with menacing spikes. She’s not sure that she could handle that right now.

“What is the matter?” Uthvir asks. “Is… this because Papa is away?”

Yeah, sure. That works. She nods.

The hunter crouches down a bit, and awkwardly pats her on the head.

“There, there. He will come back. In point of fact, he is probably crying about this, too, wherever he is,” they tell her. Which, as far as comforting thoughts go, is maybe not the best. She feels a slight flare of annoyance, and pushes her way onto her undersized feet just long enough to stagger forward, and slump against Uthvir’s midsection.

The hunter stiffens, at first. But after a little bit of awkward one-sided hugging, they close their arms around her. Then they let out a sigh, and to her surprise, lift her fully up; patting her back with one hand and settling her against their shoulder.

“Just close your eyes and pretend I smell like lilacs,” Uthvir suggests.

She curls a hand into their collar, and does close her eyes. Uthvir most definitely doesn’t smell like lilacs, though. Right now they mostly smell like the fancy soap from their private bath, which makes her think of warm spices, and of leather, which is a scent that just kind of sticks to them courtesy of their gear.

“…Nanae,” she says, quietly.

Uthvir stills.

After a moment, they turn their head, and press a very soft kiss to her temple.

“So I am,” they whisper back.

 

~

 

When she’s twenty-five, she gets tattooed again.

Andruil herself does the ceremony. Her parents are there, of course. When the evanuris strides forward, Thenvunin looks proud.

Uthvir looks… tense.

Andruil reaches over, and takes her by the chin.

“Lovely,” the huntress commends. “I think I shall write you in red; just like your charming parent.”

She glances towards Uthvir. But if anything, they just seem more tense; glaring holes into Andruil’s back all while the vallaslin is applied. It’s a less painful process than the one she recalls, at least. And quicker, too. When it’s finished, the evanuris nods in satisfaction, and pats her on the cheek, and then withdraws; her interest already moving to grander and more pressing matters.

Thenvunin reaches her first, and squeezes her tight.

“You did not even flinch! Oh, my brave girl, well done!” he says, sniffing a bit. He frames her face in his hands, and shakes his head. “I cannot believe… You, you are all grown up!”

His voice wavers, and the next thing she knows, he’s swallowing back tears; eyes shining bright.

“Papa. I have always been grown up. I was just _growing_  before,” she says, brushing a hand across his cheek.

Uthvir is being quiet. She looks to where they are standing, only to find them glaring towards the exit that Andruil left by. Their arms are crossed, and their back is rigid. Their spine is so tense, it looks liable to snap.

“Uthvir?” she asks, cautiously.

When they don’t immediately respond, she glances at Thenvunin. His brow furrows in concern. After a moment of silent eye-contact, she makes the first move forward. Reaching out, she carefully brushes Uthvir’s arm. Their gaze darts towards her; sharp and cold, at first. 

After a few seconds, though, it softens.

She looks at them for a long moment. Then she leans over, and gingerly wraps her arms around them. Mindful of the hard planes of their armour, and the sharper points on it.

“Nanae?” she asks, gently.

Uthvir sighs, and puts their own arms around her.

“So I am. I told you I would look after you until you were grown,” they say.

“And you did,” she replies, with a smile.

They squeeze her; just shy of too-tight.

“I lied. You are grown; but I think I am going to have to keep on looking after you,” they say.

“Well, _obviously,”_  Thenvunin sniffs. “Twenty-five is only _technically_  grown. Hardly old enough to be out in the world without supervision. We will not be throwing her to the wolves _._ ”

“You are both well past twenty-five, and I still look after you,” she feels compelled to point out.

Uthvir tilts their head slightly, and kisses her temple.

“I suppose you do,” they concede.


	8. New Clothes

Lavellan is nine years old, in body, and Thenvunin is wearing an outfit that… frankly, she doesn’t fully know how to describe it. It’s like Orlais threw up on him. There’s a shimmering, ruffled, sky blue collar, a gold over coat, layered, embroidered vests, pants that ripple oddly when he moves, and gold and crystal eagles on the clips in his hair, which he’s swept upwards and woven into some bizarre, swirling mess.

She looks at Uthvir.

Uthvir doesn’t really seem to appreciate the exceptional bizarreness of this outfit. They just glance at Thenvunin, snort, and then go back to sharpening their knives. Mythal a hosting a gathering of merchants in what seems to be an excuse for a party and celebrations in her Arlathan estate. She’d expected Thenvunin to dress up - especially when he’d foisted her own gold and fluffy dress upon her - but this is… a bit much.

“Papa, why are you wearing that?” she asks, carefully. Maybe there was some kind of horrible accident. Maybe Uthvir manages to tear apart enough of her papa’s wardrobe that he’d just had to hurriedly cobble together the last remaining items in some hopeless attempt at coherency.

Thenvunin smiles.

“Do you like it, my dear? I got it from the tailor’s yesterday. Well, except the jewellery, of course. But it is the very height of fashion.”

“All that… is _supposed_  to go together?” Lavallen checks.

Uthvir snickers a bit.

Thenvunin sighs.

“We really must get you more educated on aesthetic matters,” he muses.

Yeah. She’s not thinking she’s the problem here.

 

~

 

It’s not that Thenvunin looks exceptionally ridiculous when compared to other elves. She’s definitely seen weirder, and more excessive - though, not often - and she’s also seen elves far less capable of pulling off what constitutes ‘fashionable’ clothing.

But.

Well.

Her papa’s really beautiful.

Sometimes she tries to imagine what he’d look like in Dalish clothing. Picturing Uthvir in anything other than red is a challenge, but sometimes she can look at Thenvunin and see him clad in well-worn leather and soft, muted fabrics, green and brown and grey. Jewellery that’s more feather and bone than metal and gem. Subtle clothes that would have made his actual beauty readily apparent, rather than drowning it out in a cacophony of noise.

One morning she walks into his room and finds him scowling at another shirt, and she decides enough is enough. She turns and goes into Uthvir’s room instead.

“Uthvir,” she says, finding them at their desk. “I want to get Thenvunin clothes.”

The hunter looks at her, and then smirks a little.

“Finally settled on revenge for all those dresses he’s stuffed you into over the years?” they ask, putting down the paper they’d been reading.

“You help me commission them or acquire them or however it is done, and then I will give them to him as a present. Then he will have to wear them _at least_  once, or I will cry or be sad or something,” she says, barrelling on past that particular supposition.

Uthvir considers the idea.

“I suppose it is high time you learned about requisitioning items and how to commission craftsmen,” they finally decide. “Alright. We will take a trip to the tailor’s. But first you should learn how to acquire the resources you will need to commission or trade for papa’s new clothes.”

So saying, the hunter beckons her over to their desk, and moves to one of the shelves behind it.

The lesson on elvhen trade systems takes a few hours out of her morning. Thenvunin comes and checks on them, and sees Uthvir explaining economics, and just smiles and says he’ll be attending Mythal until midday.

Uthvir takes the time to explain how trade in Arlathan works, but in the end, they take her to the palace clothier rather than one of the city craftsmen. There are several elves, it seems, who specialize in keeping Mythal’s followers in clothes, and most of them immediately fall into the ‘charmed and delighted by the presence of a Tiny Child’ mode of operations that tends to happen wherever she goes.

“Lavellan wishes to commission a few outfits for her papa,” Uthvir explains.

This is, judging by the reactions to it, adorable.

One of the tailors helps her up to see what seems to be some kind of drafting board, and asks what sort of thing she had in mind. The surface of the drafting board shimmers; and what the tailor draws on it gains depth and clarity, clearly brought forth from the ideas that drift along the Fade.

At first a few suggestions are made that seem very tied into what’s fashionable, and a supposition that Lavellan is mostly concerned with getting something for Thenvunin, and not necessarily what those items themselves might be. But she gradually clears up that misconception. She wants _specific_  clothing for Thenvunin. She wants clothes that will make him look like the elegant warrior she knows is in there.

Uthvir stands back and watches from a corner of the room, silent and just a bit amused as she firmly commands the tailors into cooperating with her ideas. No, she doesn’t care if it’s unfashionable. No, she knows her papa likes things that make him look slimmer. 

One of the tailors adjusts the design they’re working on so that Thenvunin’s ‘somewhat excessive’ musculature will be ‘softened’.

“There is nothing wrong with his muscles,” she insists.

Uthvir makes a vague sound of agreement.

When it’s all said and done, Lavellan has three outfits that… well. If she’d ever been asked what a keeper might wear in some distant future where the Dalish ruled their own lands, these clothes would be a good approximation. All fitted robes and vests and mantles suited to someone of great station and influence. A princely figure. The tailors don’t seem to know quite what to make of it, though some of them eagerly begin asking her if she has an interest in making clothes.

That conversation eats up another hour or so, before the order is finally completed and Uthvir steers her away from her new admirers.

“That was not revenge,” the hunter notes, as they make their way through the palace corridors.

She shrugs.

After a moment, a hand drops gently onto her head.

“Your papa is very beautiful. And he likes to fuss over meaningless details. But he will love you as you are, even if you are never once fashionable in your life,” they tell her.

She blinks, and glances up to see Uthvir looking down at her with reassuring, unwavering certainty. Even if she hadn’t been concerned over that, the sentiment warms her a bit.

“I know,” she says. “I just kept wondering what he would look like if he dressed nicely, that is all.”

Uthvir startles, just a bit.

Then they let out a bark of laughter and ruffle her hair.

“Like father like daughter, hmm?”

 

~

 

She’s not really sure what to expect from Thenvunin when she gives him her ‘gift’. Uthvir is there for it, of course. They bring in the packages, in fact, and wink at her put them into Thenvunin’s room while her papa is busy attending Mythal. It’s not until after he afternoon painting lessons that he gets back, and then she catches his hand and tugs him into his room, only to find that Uthvir has wrapped the parcels in silvery paper ribbons, and set them neatly onto a corner table.

Thenvunin pauses, and stares.

“You got me gifts?” he asks. Obviously surprised.

“It is… I…” she hesitates, unaccountably nervous now for some reason. After a moment, she shrugs and then just gestures towards the boxes. “Just some clothes. Nothing special. It is okay if you do not like them.”

“She all but designed them herself,” Uthvir says, and she turns to see them standing in the doorway. They look amused, of course. But it’s the softer sort of amusement, that tends to turn up whenever they’re being _fond._  

Not that they admit it.

“You designed clothes?” Thenvunin exclaims, a little surprised and overwhelmingly delighted.

“The tailors did most of it. I just told them what to do,” she insists.

“I love them,” Thenvunin tells her, swooping in to hug her. “I cannot believe you did such a thing! You are so talented. It never fails to amaze me.”

“You have not even _seen_  them,” she feels compelled to point out.

“You made them for me. They are already my favourite clothes,” he decides.

“I am looking forward to seeing you in the yellow plaid jerkin, in that case,” Uthvir interjects.

The barest hint of nervousness creeps into Thenvunin’s gaze at that, and he stalls for a moment like he just missed a step. She glares at Uthvir, and then rolls her eyes at the both of them.

“There is no yellow plaid jerkin,” she promises.

Then she finally shoos her papa over to actually _open_  the boxes, which was the point of this whole endeavour. After some suggestions from Uthvir, Thenvunin ends up taking them all into his massive walk-in closet. The two of them are left outside, listening to the shuffle and rustle of packages opening, and fabric shifting. After a moment, she turns and gives her nanae a suspicious glance.

“You never care about clothes,” she feels compelled to point out. This, after all, is the hunter who has worn the exact same three sets of armour and maybe five outfits, total, for all nine years that she’s known them..

They shrug.

“I liked your outfits. I think they will suit him; and I am a great admirer of your papa’s form,” they say, with a gleam in their eye.

Right.

If this works out she might have to find someplace… else. To be. For a few hours.

After a nearly-worrying number of minutes have passed, Thenvunin emerges in one of the outfits she got for him. A well-fitted shirt and pant set meant to go easily under armour, but also with a long vest that trails down towards his ankles. The bottom layer is a dark, rich purple - almost black - and the vest accentuates his broad shoulders, and is where the vast majority of details have been placed. Embroidered birds mark the vivid purple interior, which shows only in hints and slight details when Thenvunin moves. The exterior is soft, silvery fabric, covered in a web of lighter silver lace, that creeps down from the shoulders and fades midway down the chest. He’s got his hair loose, and unbound, and when he moves the outfit moves with him, and she thinks to herself that it turned out pretty well.

 _That_  is her papa.

He smiles at her, and then shoots a slightly less confident glance towards Uthvir.

“Your clothes are beautiful, my dear,” Thenvunin tells her. “We should get you lessons on design and weaving and all sorts of things. Your grandmother would be thrilled to teach you a great deal, I would wager.”

Thenvunin’s mother is a nice lady, but Lavellan doesn’t have any aspirations towards being a clothier.

She shrugs.

“I just did it for you,” she admits. 

He looks a little more touched by that than she was expecting.

After a few minutes more and another glance at Uthvir, he goes back and tries on the other two outfits. The second one suits him as well as the first, but she’s not so sure of the third - it’s the loudest of the bunch, and the one that the tailors had the most say in. _He_  seems the most comfortable in it, but she thinks too much of his shape gets lost in the layers.

“You can rip that one up if you want,” she tells Uthvir, quietly, as Thenvunin checks his reflection.

“If I touch a stitch on any of these outfits, your papa will kill me,” they reply, equally quiet. “And you are not supposed to know that I do that.”

Yeah, well, that ship sailed the first morning she woke up when she was four to hear Thenvunin hissing angrily over jewelled buttons. Uthvir had apparently ripped them off with enough drama that they’d scattered throughout the study. She’d found two of them herself, and just quietly put them on her papa’s desk.

She shrugs.

“You _are_  going to tell him he looks really good in my clothes, though, right?” she asks.

Uthvir smirks.

“I consider them as much a present for myself as for him,” they say.

Right.

“Good. I do not need the details,” she decides.


	9. Proper Attire

“You are not getting your portrait done like that,” Thenvunin insists.

It is the fifth time he has had to insist upon it, and he is well sick of the need to. Uthvir is stubborn, and relentless, and they have no taste to speak of. Admittedly, there are times when Thenvunin forgets that standards of dress and appearance even _can_ be applied to the hunter; their style of dress is so consistent and unchanging, it has almost written itself into his mind as an intrinsic part of them.

But there are some situations in which a spiked suit of armour, or even a spike _-free_ suit of armour, is unacceptable. Regardless of Uthvir’s suggestions. And this is one of them. It has taken a great deal of work for Thenvunin to secure the talents of this portrait artist, and he will not have the image depicted be of himself and his daughter in beautiful regalia, and his daughter’s nanae looking like they just walked straight off of a hunt.

“I do not _care,_ Thenvunin,” Uthvir insists, waving a hand dismissively. “Go without me, if it bothers you so. Get your lovely portrait with Lavellan done. I do not even know why you think I should be in it in the first place.”

Of course they do not. Uncivilized, unsociable beast.

“Because you are her nanae, of course!” he says, scowling to convey just how ridiculous the hunter is being. “It is a family portrait, Uthvir. The point is to give it to her when she is grown, to remind her of these times. It is essential, and you should be in it.”

Uthvir waves a hand dismissively.

“Please, Thenvunin. You have no such portrait yourself. How important can it be?”

The comment brings him up short for a moment. But then he rallies, folding his arms across his chest.

“Of course I have such portraits,” he lies. “Just because you have not seen them does not mean they do not exist. But that is beside the point. I am thousands of years old. Lavellan will appreciate having such artwork as she adjusts to the _immediacy_ of her adulthood, to remind her that we love her and will care for her even when she must invariably be apart from us, and pursuing her own dreams. When she faces challenges, she will look at it, and know that she can come to us. _Both_ of us.”

That might be overselling the notion, just a bit. But Thenvunin perhaps has some strong feelings on certain subjects.

They are expecting Uthvir to scoff again.

Instead, the hunter pauses.

After a moment, though, they shrug.

“Well, then, she should be reminded of what I tend to look like,” they reason. “And I tend to look like this.”

“The artist will throw us out if you attempt to sit for him looking like that,” Thenvunin returns, lifting his chin. “Really, Uthvir. It is a few hours in a set of proper clothing. _Must_ you be so difficult? What is Lavellan to think, when she sees her nanae constantly deriding and ignoring matters of decorum like this? Bad enough that you attend festivals and ceremonies in armour. Presentation is important, and for good or ill, you are the one she emulates most. You should set a better example.”

The mood in the room drops, sharply.

“And that means I should permit myself to be swathed in finery like some ridiculous peacock?” Uthvir sneers.

Now Thenvunin finds himself stalling. The bite to their tone is unexpected. It should not be, he supposes. Uthvir’s tone is often biting. Perhaps it is simply the inappropriateness of having such venom and reluctance directed towards what _should_ be a straight-forward, unquestionable matter of manners, consideration, and parenting.

“It is one outfit for one day, you impossible creature!” Thenvunin snaps.

“And to what end?” the hunter counters, rounding on him at once. Their gaze is flinty, hackles fully raised, lips curled with disdain. “To create a memory for _Lavellan?_ A memory of what? Another time that her father stuffed her into some detestable work of frippery, and made her sit still for hours so that some stranger could preserve her moment of discomfort for centuries to come? Do you imagine she will look at such an image and think to herself that her parents are reliable and care for her, or that she will look at it and recall that her papa is a fool with more mind for presentation and purpose? A flighty, inconsistent, oblivious, and egotistical idiot who could never help her overcome anything, because he would be too concerned with how she looked like while the world burned around her than with putting out the flames?”

Thenvunin pales.

All the colour drains from him, and settles like ice in the pit of his stomach. His mouth goes dry and he swallows, and feels all at once very brittle, and injured, and shocked by the injury. He feels for a moment like a diving bird. A diving bird accustomed to fishing in shark-infested waters, swooping into the sea to steal up tiny fish, while the sharks all do the same. Forgetting that the bigger beasts have their own sharp teeth, until one takes a bite from him.

But how could he forget? He never has, he thinks. Familiarity had just bred unwariness; he had forgotten that Uthvir’s courtesies are reserved for their daughter.

The hunter is sneering. Dark and sharp and disdainful.

“Nanae?”

Lavellan’s voice is uncertain at the doorway. They both freeze, and Thenvunin feels a different sort of alarm as he turns, and realizes that she almost certainly overheard that. His daughter is standing up the threshold to Uthvir’s rooms, her expression assessing but also uncertain. Small brows furrowed.

“Little heart! Should you not be at your harp lessons?” Thenvunin asks, mustering up a smile even as his heart pounds anxiously at his ribcage.

The ten-year-old hesitates a moment.

“I broke the harp again,” she admits. “What are you two fighting about?”

“We are not fighting, dearest. We are debating,” he immediately refutes.

“Uthvir insulted you. You are fighting,” Lavellan counters, folding her own arms. She looks towards the hunter in question, and she does not look pleased. “I know Papa is sometimes excessive about clothing, but I also know he does not care for it above and beyond all other things. If you are going to fight, at least do not use suppositions about me to do it. I am not interested in being the scapegoat either of you use to tear into one another.”

There is a pause.

After a long moment, Uthvir lets out a breath.

“My apologies, Thenvunin,” they say. “That was, perhaps, excessive of me.”

“It was,” he agrees, marshalling himself. His daughter is watching. He cannot have her fearing that her caretakers will be at odds with one another. Not truly, anyway. “But I accept your apology.”

There. That should suffice.

But Lavellan only looks at the both of them, and sighs.

She makes her way into the room, and closes the door. After a minute, she heads over to Uthvir’s favourite wingback chair, and settles herself into it. It leaves the two of them standing before her, like petitioners before a throne.

“Alright. Spell it out for me,” she requests. “What is the difficulty?”

“It is not something you need to worry over,” Uthvir assures her.

“Too late,” she counters. “I have been horribly unsettled by the aggression of your interactions. You will have to tell me what is the matter, and we will have to resolve the situation, or I fear I shall have awful nightmares about it for weeks. It may stunt my development, even.”

Uthvir snorts.

Thenvunin feels a note of concern. He knows his daughter sometimes jests over her supposed vulnerabilities, but that does not mean they are somehow invalid.

He looks at Uthvir, who is not looking at him, and after a moment, relents.

“It is only the matter of a portrait. Nothing to worry about,” he explains, turning back towards his child. “Your nanae refuses to dress for one.”

“I said I would sit for it, and that I would be dressed,” Uthvir counters. Their tone has lost its edge, however, and has regained its usual qualities of airy dismissal.

“Dress _appropriately_ for one,” Thenvunin amends, through gritted teeth.

Insufferable, stubborn elf.

“And what is appropriate dress for this portrait?” Lavellan asks, resting her elbows against the arms of the chair, and tenting her fingers together. The look on her face is very serious, and once again, assessing. She could make a good diplomat one day, he thinks.

“Fine, formal clothing. Not armour. It is a family portrait. I commissioned a very celebrated artists precisely for it, and he has exacting standards,” he explains.

“Even ceremonial armour is not permitted?” Lavellan wonders, raising an eyebrow.

Thenvunin sighs.

“If it was meant to be a portrait of military distinction, or a commemoration of battlefield accomplishments, then certainly,” he says. “But it would be the height of impropriety to include a child in such an image.”

“Why?” his daughter wonders.

He softens his demeanour a bit.

“Because no one wishes to associate children with the sort of things that happen on battlefields, dear one,” he says.

Lavellan regards him for a moment, and then looks at Uthvir. The hunter seems uneasy. Well, Thenvunin thinks, they _should_ feel uneasy. After that horrendous display, insulting him and managing to do it in front of their child, no less. All over some silly reluctance to have their terrifying image dented for a single day’s time. He cannot even imagine what the hunter might look like in nice clothing.

Though sometimes he does try.

“Is there another portrait artists who might be more flexible?” Lavellan wonders.

Thenvunin feels a brief curl of disappointment, that her response was not to suggest that, given the number of times she has worn fine clothing despite a reluctance to do so, her nanae should simply get over themselves and cooperate for once.

“The artist I have commissioned is _exemplary,”_ he insists. “But his standards do not greatly differ from that of his peers.”

His daughter considers this.

After a moment, she sighs.

“I am sorry, Papa, but I do not see how it could work then,” she decides. “At least you have the portraits I did. I know that they are hardly expert, but it seems they will have to suffice.”

“Your paintings are _lovely,”_ Thenvunin insists.

He earns an amused look for his efforts.

“Well, that is settled, then,” Uthvir decides. Heading over, he lifts Lavellan out of the chair, and pats her cheek. “Thank you for your verdict. Now. Tell me. Did you destroy the harp on purpose, or…?”

Thenvunin watches nanae and daughter interact, and deflates internally. He could argue it, he thinks. But it will be nigh-on impossible to convince Uthvir of anything now that Lavellan has also sided against it. After a moment he turns and leaves the room to go and cancel the commission.

~

It is a few hours later, as he is tending to his birds, that Uthvir finds him.

He feels their gaze upon him before he sees them. Standing a moment, watching him and watching his birds. Probably thinking of all the ways they could slaughter his pets, or rip off his clothes, or further degrade him in some way. Perhaps inventing new insults to call into question Thenvunin’s priorities, tastes, or capacity as a parent.

“You are a good father,” Uthvir says.

Thenvunin pauses, and glances towards them. A flash of red in the corner of his vision. But the softer kind; clothed but not armoured.

It is not the first time the hunter has paid him that compliment. In that moment, however, it feels less like a matter of course, and more like an attempt to balm a wound they themselves cut open.

“That is not what you were implying earlier,” he feels compelled to point out.

“No,” Uthvir agrees. “That was unfair of me. I know there is a purpose to presentation. Yours and mine alike. I do not truly think you value frivolous things above Lavellan’s safety. It is different among Mythal’s followers, and Lavellan should learn how to present herself to your people and your Lady in such a way as appeals to them.”

Thenvunin turns. One of his songbirds alights upon his shoulder, singing for attention. He absently gives it a small segment of fruit, as he takes in Uthvir. The hunter looks firm, but no longer has their teeth bared. There is just the faintest twinge of remorse to the air around them. But even that much is fairly uncommon.

Still.

“I would think that if you realized the importance of presentation, you might care more for your own,” he points out.

Uthvir raises a brow.

“You think I do not?” the hunter counters. “Come now, Thenvunin. You know better. I have as much of a mind for appearances as you do.”

A bold claim. But of course they would make such; and of course they cultivate that image of theirs intentionally. The impression of the dangerous hunter they are. Throwing aside civility for the sake of underlining their savage strength and menace.

“You really are impossible,” Thenvunin tsk’s. “Can you not break away from this ‘image’ of yours for a single moment, then?”

The hunter shrugs.

“It is who I am,” they say, simply. “What would it take to have a portrait of your own self done as some alien creature, divorced from the reality of who you are?”

Thenvunin swallows.

He thinks of his childhood. Mother and father having him sit for his first portrait. Father speaking in low tones with the artist. The flurry of hissed words when the painting came back. _Do you think he will not notice that the portrait looks nothing like him?_ his mother had asked. His father’s low tones had answered her. _He will not want to remember looking like this. Let him have it this way; let him be able to show it to other people without shame when he is grown._

His father still has that portrait, he believes. Though perhaps he got rid of it when his second child was born. No more need for the fantasy.

Old, old memories. But childhood burns like a star in one’s life, even thousands of years removed from it.

“I am sorry,” he says.

The apology flies out of him seemingly without thought, review, or even consideration. It wings away on the heels of the memory.

Uthvir blinks.

Thenvunin does, as well.

Then he straightens his shoulders, and clears his throat.

“I should have anticipated that you would be entirely uncooperative. When are you not, after all? It was obscenely optimistic of me to even entertain the notion of a successful portrait.”

“Obscenely,” Uthvir agrees. Their lips quirk, slightly. “But, you know, Thenvunin, the standards of Mythal’s artists are not universal. Hunters wear their gear as a means of providing in addition to conquering. Among our ranks, it is not at all uncommon for family portraits to include both children, and the tools with which their parents provide for them.”

Thenvunin pauses, momentarily baffled by the change in tone, and the seeming non sequitur.

“Oh?” he wonders, for lack of a better response.

Uthvir shrugs.

“I could commission someone, if you are still interested in this portrait business. I imagine Lavellan would enjoy being able to sit for a painting with her whole family clad in armour. Though it might not suit your own preferences.”

They deliver this offer in a tone that implies utter indifference to whether or not it will be accepted.

Thenvunin hesitates.

A family portrait all done in armour hardly seems appropriate. He could not possibly imagine it being fit for company. But… it _is_ for Lavellan. He had not been exaggerating on that front. And, he supposes, it could be reassuring for her to also recall that both her papa and her nanae are capable warriors. Able to protect her physically, as well as support her.

“I suppose, if you insist on being so intolerably stubborn, it will have to do,” he decides.

Uthvir looks at him a moment, and then inclines their head.

“I will make the arrangements,” they promise.

~

Thenvunin stares at the finished portrait.

Credit where it is due; the artist Uthvir commissioned may not have the brilliance of the one which Thenvunin had first acquired, but they did a strong job on the likenesses. The composition is more than suitable. Lavellan is sat upon a chair, with her nanae at her back, and Thenvunin at both of theirs. His pose is slightly different from what he recalls; he is tilted more to the side, with a hand on the hilt of his blade. As if ready to defend his family from some impending foe. Uthvir themselves have a looming quality; but none of their sharpness seems angled towards either himself or Lavellan, by any means.

And his child looks happy, and safe, and calm.

That is probably what is pleasing him about the whole thing, despite the many disappointments involved.

Even so.

“We shall have to hang it in the bathroom,” he decides.


	10. The Talk

“I will be explaining such things to her,” Thenvunin insists.

Uthvir gives him a long, steady look.

“You realize, Thenvunin, that I _am_  technically responsible for ensuring her safety and well-being, yes?” the red hunter replies, leaning back against the wall behind them. They are currently enjoying the hospitality of Mythal’s Arlathan estate. It is evening. Quiet; peaceful. Their daughter is safely ensconced inside, while her caretakers debate matters of her future in the gardens. “It would be doing a disservice to both to let you handle her education with regards to sex.”

Thenvunin bristles, because of course he does. The man is wearing what amounts to several hundred layers of billowy opalescent fabric. Ostensibly these are fashionable nightclothes. They billow about him as he gestures irately.

“You - you will fill her head with depravity!” Thenvunin insists.

Uthvir raises an eyebrow.

“And what will you do? Tell her to lie back and think of Elvhenan?” they ask, bristling a bit themselves. “I will not have you convincing her that every interaction necessitates her victimization; that she is not meant to enjoy it, and that she should feel ashamed if she does.”

“As if I would tell her that!” Thenvunin snaps.

With a frown, Uthvir moves forward.

“Oh? And what would you tell her, then?”

They are dressed lightly for the evening themselves, though not beyond reason. Fitted, dark red clothing, from head to toe; but all of it save for their boots and vest is made of soft, flexible material.

Thenvunin swallows as they draw close.

“I have a book I was going to go through with her, explaining how various acts are done,” he says. “And I will explain to her that she is not to tolerate anyone doing anything to her without her express permission; and that if someone should try to, she is to find you or I, and direct us towards them. I will tell her she should only engage in such activities with someone she trusts. And that she should wait until she is much, much older to even begin considering it.”

Uthvir comes to a stop in front of him. They tilt their head as they regard the other elf. That is… not actually half bad, they suppose. Though it would probably be filled with Thenvunin’s own particular brand of circuitous double-speak and baffling metaphors.

“Is that what your parents told you?” they wonder.

Thenvunin’s chin tilts, just a bit.

“My parents did not speak with me on this subject,” he says. 

“Your first time did not go well,” Uthvir surmises.

“It was fine,” Thenvunin swiftly counters. “Certainly it was! It was perfectly serviceable!”

Uthvir moves a little closer. Thenvunin looks torn between leaning in and stiffening backwards yet further; he has gone rigid. But when the hunter reaches for his chin, he does not put up much of a fight as he is pulled down for a kiss.

“ _Serviceable,”_  Uthvir growls, low and heated. “My poor Thenvunin. Did they tell you to be quieter? Stop moving so much? Did they disappoint you? Come to quickly, with too little foreplay, too few compliments. Did they fail to devour you, as thoroughly as you wished to be devoured?”

Thenvunin shudders, just a bit. After years of raising a child together, they have reached a strange sort of equilibrium, on certain matters. Still. Uthvir half expects him to straighten back again, and sputter out some half-baked denial, and storm off in a flurry of fabric and hair.

Instead, he shivers, and licks his lips.

“It could have gone better,” he admits. Just a touch wry.

“Shall we pretend it never happened?” Uthvir offers. Such an intoxicating idea; pretending certain interludes never once occurred. They slide a hand around Thenvunin’s waist, and draw him flush to them. Their hand all but disappears into the fabric; but even so, they can feel the stirrings of his interest pressing through the front layers. “Shall we pretend no one has ever touched you before? Shall I do the job properly?”

“You are _incorrigible!”_  Thenvunin complains. “We are supposed to be having a serious discussion, not - not getting frisky in the garden!”

“And you are simply too tempting,” Uthvir asserts, pulling down Thenvunin’s collar to nip at his neck.

“Savage,” their prey accuses. Without much complaint in his tone.

“Savage, hmm?” the hunter replies, and promptly tears off the first layer of billowing fabric beneath their hands. This is an upside to the ridiculous outfit, they suppose; they could probably tear through quite a lot of it before it became to indecent to wear. Something which has been a legitimate concern ever since their daughter was six, and happened upon them _indisposed,_  with none of Thenvunin’s clothing remaining as little more than tatters.

To her credit, their daughter had just sighed and turned on her heel. A few minutes later she’d thrown a fresh outfit into the room, with one hand firmly fixed over her eyes. Then she had obligingly bought her Papa’s story about an accidental spell ruining his clothes.

Thenvunin had never stopped being mortified about it, though.

“Do not-” he begins, shrill.

Uthvir hushes him.

“It looks much better with less of it on you anyway,” he asserts. And it does; as it works down to the last three shimmering layers, the soft fabric cascading over Thenvunin’s skin, the billowing folds take on a diaphonous quality that actually does compliment the man’s beauty.

“There. Now you look lovely, and so pure,” Uthvir purrs, leaning up to claim a hungry kiss, before bearing Thenvunin down to the soft garden grass.

“This is ridiculous,” Thenvunin protests; nevertheless going red and pliant beneath Uthvir’s hands. The soft material he is still wearing slides over his skin; the texture quite pleasant. “There is no need to pretend…”

“With you there is _always_  a need to pretend,” Uthvir interrupts. 

They drag their touch along the well-sculpted angles of Thenvunin’s form; admiring the picture he makes, and enjoying the sensation of touching him like this. His breath stutters when they tease his nipples; and hitches when they draw their touch down his stomach, only to carry down to his thighs, and ease them apart. His hair spreads like a bright halo over the dark grass.

He bites his lip, holding incredibly still in that way he only ever does when he is on the verge of behaving ‘indecorously’. Uthvir sighs, but at least the sensation of touching him is pleasant enough on its own to keep them sufficiently interested right now. They should find out what this material is. Get some sheets of it, and just cover him with one whenever he is being difficult.

His interest is rather apparent regardless, with the tent of his erection nestled directly in front of Uthvir. The fabric slides beautifully over that, too. Thevunin bites his lip as they draw long, languid touches up his length, and close their lips over his head. His fists grip the grass around him, and his breaths speed up.

Uthvir hums.

“Come now, pretty thing. Is this how it goes for your first time? Of all the things to swallow down in times such as these, your moans should be the least of them,” they insist. Then they lick their own lips, and at last pull back the fabric of his nightclothes to devour him, as promised.

Thenvunin’s hips jerks. A deep, throaty moan does escape him, then. He stifles it quickly with a fist against his mouth; but Uthvir still grins around him, ever-so-gently dragging the tips of their teeth over sensitive skin, and dragging sharp nails softly down his inner thighs, before moving their hands to pin him place. It does not take Thenvunin long at all to stiffen, and spill down their throat; and another cry scrapes out of him when he does, badly stifled though it might be.

Uthvir swallows, and grins up at him.

“That part was in character,” they commend.

Thenvunin glares, panting, and finally pulls his fist away from his mouth.

“What happened to being complimentary?” he asks, with a huff.

“That _was_ a compliment,” Uthvir snickers, and pulls the fabric back down around him, dutifully setting him back to rights; though that probably will not last long. They prowl up for another kiss, and a light nip to Thenvunin’s lips.

They feel a brief jolt of surprise when Thenvunin’s hands come up, and settle onto their own waist. Then another, when he does not push them away; but rather leaves them there, just above their hips. Thenvunin’s head tilts back, baring the long line of his neck.

Uthvir considers him for a moment, and then obligingly traces that line with their mouth. They kiss and lick and nip, starting at the joint and then working their way up to his jaw, and then the sensitive flesh of his ear. The hands at their waist flex a bit, but otherwise do not move much.

“You are like moonlight on the surface of a lake, you know,” Uthvir tells him. “Everyone focuses on the beauty of the light. But underneath, there are more worthy things; all of them tangled amidst the dark waters.”

“That is much finer-sounding than ‘dead fish’, though it still amounts to the same thing,” Thenvunin quips. But his voice is somewhat tremulous. 

“It is obvious that you are beautiful. What is not obvious is that you are _more_  than beautiful,” Uthvir continues, whispering into his ear, and then moves to kiss him again; and spare him the awkwardness of a response. His grip on them tightens in surprise. And then again, when Uthvir bites his lip just hard enough to draw blood, and drags the sensation of it out; drawing up the nerves as they pull back and lick the wound, and then seal it closed again with a kiss.

Thenvunin looks a bit dazed.

Dazed is good. They can work with dazed.

Uthvir pulls back, until they can cup his softened member through the fabric, and gently coax it back towards hardness. They pull away from it intermittently, though; sliding admiring touches over his legs instead, and pressing questing fingers between his cheeks. 

“Roll over,” they ask.

Thenvunin blinks.

“We did not bring any… that is, there is no…” he begins.

“Trust me,” Uthvir requests, catching his gaze. 

Thenvunin’s mouth opens and closes a few times. They wait. And after a moment, patience is rewarded, as he turns and puts himself flat on his belly. A more vulnerable position is hard to imagine, Uthvir decides; though it can be managed, when they spread his legs again, and place their hands over the firm flesh of his backside.

Beneath the airy fabric, Thenvunin’s muscles tense somewhat.

His skin feels as pleasant through the layers on this side as on the other, though. And he squirms, just a bit, as his growing arousal presses into the ground. Uthvir dips low, spreading him open, and drawing their touch - and the fabric of his nightclothes - down between his cheeks. They press kisses to his lower back, and then draw their tongue down and down, before settling it against the tight, hot ring of waiting muscles.

Thenvunin gasps.

Without fail; this act never ceases to surprise him, nor provoke a reaction. Uthvir does it sparingly, if only in hopes of preserving this rare level of response. They lave at him, pressing just gently inside, until he spasms against them. Another gasp wrings out of him at they gently work their tongue over his entrance. His hand grip the grass again, and his hips shift, pressing into them and then, as if suddenly realizing what they are doing, pulling away again.

“Uthvir,” Thenvunin chokes.

_Yes._

They press their face more firmly to him, licking until the fabric is sopping wet, until Thenvunin is grinding with varying desperation into their touch and into the ground, until he is gasping and his thighs are trembling. Uthvir’s own arousal is a sinking heat, spreading with every choked breath, every shift of Thenvunin’s hips, and unhindered gasp that escapes him.

“Please,” he asks.

Uthvir stills in shock.

Thenvunin, pleading? No. Truly? They pull back just enough to look at him, where he is still panting and spread out upon the ground. Slowly, they climb up his back, and then reach for his face. They tilt him enough to look at him. His pupils are blown wide, and he is flushed all over, his lips swollen and parted with each panting breath he draws in.

“What do you need, my lovely?” they ask, their own voice low and rough with want. Whatever it is, they think, they will do it. They will get what is needed for it, even if they have to race through an eluvian to manage it.

“ _You_ , you menace,” Thenvunin declares, and to their surprise, twists fully around, and pulls them down to his chest. His hips buck clumsily against them as one of his hands fists in their hair, and he pulls them down for a kiss. When they part, Uthvir is rather fairly shocked, and Thenvunin looks indignant. At what, in particular, is harder to say. Possibly at himself.

“Here I am, spread out for the taking, and yet you stop. You _always_  stop. Why do you always stop?!” Thenvunin demands, angling his hips against theirs again. A muffled half-curse escapes him.

“I do not always stop,” Uthvir objects.

“Yes you do! It is never enough for me to just be available and beautiful, you always have to - to stop and _involve me!”_ Thenvunin declares, rough and a little wild around the edges.

Uthvir stares at him, baffled and a little uncomfortable at just where the arm around them has settled in regards to their back.

“I am having sex with you, Thenvunin. You are involved,” they point out, flatly.

“If you keep being so damned courteous, I am going to become convinced that you are not really all that depraved after all,” Thenvunin complains. “And if _you_  are not really all that depraved, but we keep having questionable intercourse in inadvisable locations, then what does that make _me?!_  I cannot… it is… one of us has to be… argh!”

Uthvir blinks.

“Are you having some sort of sexual crisis again?” they ask.

Thenvunin sucks in a breath through his teeth. Then he lets it out again.

“Just fuck me,” he finally demands.

Uthvir manages to get his arm off of them.

“Alright, fine. I shall go acquire some lubricant. Try not to have any other meltdowns before I get back,” they request, beginning to pull back.

Thenvunin grasps them again, though. His hips press up towards them.

“No. Knowing you, you will decide it would be a funny thing to leave me until morning, and not return at all,” he snaps. That would be fairly amusing, in fact. Uthvir tries to look suitably affronted by the accusation, though.

“I am not putting anything in you without sufficient lubrication, Thenvunin. Rectal trauma is not attractive,” they reason. At the mulish look on his face, though, they find themselves relenting a bit. Reaching over, they pull his hand away; but rather than withdrawing, they lean in close, lining their hips up better. It makes him twitch towards them again, throwing his head back.

“Dammit, Uthvir,” he swears.

But he stills as they reach down and start unfastening the lacings of their pants. Taking one of his hands, Uthvir sucks in a breath, and guides it to their own crotch.

Thenvunin looks a little wide-eyed.

They swallow, and then shrug.

“Well. There _is_ more than one way to handle your request,” they reason.

For a moment, they are almost certain that he is going to refuse. Or demand that they handle it themselves. Or think of something else. Thenvunin stares at where they’ve left his hand, just shy of the opening in their pants. Barely brushing against a strip of golden skin. His fingers twitch away. But then they press back, and he reaches into their pants. Long, slightly calloused digits press through sensitive folds of flesh.

Uthvir lets out a breath. They had forgotten… it is very intense, this feeling. The sensation of someone else’s fingers, touching them there. Thenvunin is hesitant. His touch is distinctive. The slightly roughness to his fingers provides a pleasant sort of friction. And yet, still, Uthvir finds themselves stiffening for a moment. They look at him, focusing on his face to drive back the sudden memories of the _last_  time someone touched them like this; which really was not like this, at all.

Then Thenvunin brushes up a particularly sensitive spot, and they let out groan, pressing down against his hand.

“See? You keep insisting on involving me,” Thenvunin says, though his voice sounds distinctly strained. “Now I am getting my hands dirty with you. Unbelievable.”

Uthvir fixes him with a look.

“I was just licking your asshole, Thenvunin. Never fear. I am still _well_ ahead of you on this fr—ah—f-front!” Their sentence breaks as one of his fingers slips inside of them, the touch just shy of rough. A second presses up alongside it; not quite entering, but near to, as the first finger crooks inside of them. They moan again, twitching at the sensation.

Thenvunin goes quiet again, then; apparently content to let their own breathy sounds fill up the silence as his fingers work them open with increasing assuredness.

“You have never asked me to touch you like this before,” he notes, at length.

His voice is quiet enough, and the sensations from his touch distracting enough, that it takes Uthvir a moment to even realize that he has spoken; and then another one to consider the actual content of what he has said.

“I did not think you would be interested,” they then dismiss. “Considering your stance on ‘involvement’.”

Thenvunin’s eyes narrow a bit.

“Is that really why?” he wonders.

With a frown, Uthvir pulls his his hand away, and pins both of his wrists to the ground.

“Of course,” they reply, lifting their brows at him. “Did you imagine I _dislike_  being touched?” Any answer which Thenvunin might give is cut off as they grind their hips together. They let go of him long enough to slide their pants further down, then; to give enough of an opening for them to push away the soft fabric he is wearing, and sink onto him. He hisses as they do, and reaches for their hips.

They smirk. The stretch of him is just a bit painful. They don’t give themselves much time to adjust, though, before they set a swift pace, taking him until he twisting beneath them; clenching around him until he gasping as he spills into them.

Uthvir pulls back once he does. They are still burning; but that can wait until later. They do not care to give up any more control than they already have, tonight. Thenvunin draws in ragged breaths, spent and thoroughly debauched in the moonlit garden.

They set about righting their own clothing.

Slowly, Thenvunin sits up.

“Uthvir. Give me a hand,” he requests.

“You should probably wait a moment, if your legs are still shaky,” Uthvir suggests, giving him a considering once-over.

Thenvunin scowls.

“I have no desire to spend the entire night out here, nor to be here in the morning, when Lavellan might decide to take her breakfast to the garden. Help me up,” he insists.

With a long-suffering sigh, Uthvir moves to oblige him, clasping his arm and helping him to his feet. They are expecting him to stagger against them, a bit. Thenvunin is tall enough and heavy enough that they brace themselves for it.

What they are not expecting is the hand that lands squarely in the middle of their back.

It is not painful, of course. Through the fabric of their shirts and their vest they can just barely feel the warmth of his palm, and where the touch lands over their scars, they can feel only pressure. And there is no danger. Thenvunin has no claws, nor any great capacity for making them; he has no weapons, and the touch which rests between Uthvir’s shoulder blades certainly had more opportunity to cause injury to them when it was between their legs.

Even so, Uthvir stiffens. A rush of fear surges up their spine, reflexive and uncontrolled, and they wrestle with it. The dual impulses to lash out and to _not_  lash out, no matter how much they want to, stymie one another. For a moment, all they can do is stand there and feel violated.

Thenvunin retracts his hand.

Uthvir entertains the brief hope that their reaction had not been telling enough to draw notice.

“You _do_  dislike being touched!”

Hope is dashed.

They shove Thenvunin away, but the man is steady enough to keep his feet. He is looking at them narrow-eyed again.

“All this time, you have been chiding me over my ‘issues’, but what about yours?” he demands. “I should have realized sooner there was something strange about it, when I never once saw you completely undressed.”

“Shut. Up. Thenvunin,” Uthvir hisses.

“I will not!” Thenvunin insists. “You - you are a hypocrite! You are just as terrible in bed as any other hypothetical person might be!”

“Why? Because I do not undress?” they demand, folding their arms, fighting the ugly feeling still slinking around beneath their skin. Of course. _Of course_ , this should happen. They never should have let him touch them. “You can be stark naked and fully aroused and still have no idea what to do with all the bits and pieces involved! I should know; I have witnessed it often enough.”

“Yes you have!” Thenvunin snaps. Then he shakes his head. “No, that is - I mean, you have seen me naked often enough. And yet, you cannot even be bothered to return the favour!”

“And why should I? You have never requested it. You have, in fact, made it clear you would not welcome it,” Uthvir counters.

That seems to bring him up short for a moment.

“Well. Be that as it may, in the interest of fairness, I think I should see you undressed now,” Thenvunin insists, sniffing a bit. “After all, we are raising a child together.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Uthvir asks, taking a step back.

“Everything, of course! What if you are hiding something?” Thenvunin suggests.

“What could I possibly hide under my clothes that would have to do with parenting?!” they counter, and take yet another step back. Their skin is really crawling now. The atmosphere from before is dead, and the garden feels cold and unfriendly; the moon a shrewd, judgemental eye overhead.

“I demand to see you naked!” Thenvunin snaps. Shrill and loud.

They both pause, as his voice echoes through the garden.

There is a slow creak, as a window overhead opens.

“Papa?” Lavellan’s voice calls.

Thenvunin pales, and then immediately bolts under the nearest archway.

“Papa is fine,” Uthvir wryly calls up, catching his daughter’s sleep-mussed face as she blinks down from her window. “We were just out yelling at the moon. Go back to sleep, my dear.”

With some obvious reluctance, she withdraws; but she leaves the window open.

Uthvir glances at Thenvunin, and then stalks off towards the far side of the garden.

They probably will not be able to sleep tonight anyway.

 

~

 

The next morning, Uthvir walks in to their chambers to find Lavellan and Thenvunin sitting together. The two of them are across from one another, next to the balcony doors. The hunter is about to turn and head back the way they came, but the serious look on their daughter’s face brings them up short.

Lavellan has a great capacity to look severe, Uthvir has found. She tends to reserve it for moments when she is particularly brooding, or focused on a task she deems important, or if she has just witnessed behaviour that does not meet with her surprisingly high standards of decency. It is a surprisingly dire expression, that, though somewhat cute on a child’s face, will almost definitely serve her best as an adult.

Right now, she is directing such a look towards Thenvunin.

“-and pressuring people for that sort of thing is unacceptable,” she is saying.

Thenvunin looks like he just swallowed twenty lemons.

“That is not what was happening,” he says, and his expression only drops further into mortification when he spies Uthvir standing there.

Lavellan clears her throat; the thirteen-year-old looks thoroughly unconvinced.

“Papa,” she says. “I _heard_  what you shouted. What you and Uthvir do as two consenting adults is your own business, but going around making demands like that is immoral.”

Thenvunin looks pained.

“I… yes, yes it is,” he concedes.

“I would not blame Uthvir if they were no longer comfortable around you,” she adds, shaking her head. 

“Oh, do not worry so much,” Uthvir interjects, finally drawing her attention to their presence; though she does not look surprised to see them there. “Context eases things a bit. Your Papa was not quite following a normal train of logic. It sounded much worse than it was.”

To their surprise, Lavellan seems a bit sceptical of their own assertions, too.

But she only shakes her head, in the end, and does not insist upon further answers. She stands up from her seat instead.

“Just… please be considerate of one another. I am very fond of both of you, after all,” she tells them. “And even if it is with each other, if either of you feels as though you are being pressured or coerced into doing things you do not wish to, please come and find me. I will do my best to help.”

Thenvunin sputters a bit.

Uthvir raises an eyebrow, as she walks over and pats them - very gingerly - on the arm.

“You do realize that anyone who could force _me_  to do something I did not wish to could probably _kill_ you, yes?” they point out to her, bluntly.

She treats them to a sharp smile.

“Perhaps they could not take on both of us together,” she suggests.

Then she leaves the room, off to go and attend her studies. Uthvir waits until she is gone before leaning against the door frame, and staring at Thenvunin. Who is staring out the windows. 

“Did she turn your speech around on you?” the hunter wonders, at length.

Thenvunin shakes his head.

“I did not even get a chance to give it to her; she opened with it, in fact,” he admits.

“Well. I suppose that is one less thing to worry about,” Uthvir muses. Spirits had probably done this job for them; eager, educational things that they could be.

Thenvunin frowns down at his hands.

“Uthvir…”

“Do not mention it,” they insist. Their skin is still crawling.

Thenvunin’s mouth tightens into a thin line. But he obligingly keeps his silence, as Uthvir turns, and leaves the room.


	11. Blood Writing

Andruil’s Great Hunts are not considered child-appropriate events.

Lavellan understands this, and appreciates the sentiments behind it. A notorious festival full of animal slaughter, drunkenness, and debauchery isn’t suitable for the underage. She can’t say she even particularly wants to participate. She misses Uthvir while they’re busy with it, of course, the few times they can’t get leave from the duties and have to attend. But Thenvunin usually takes her somewhere interesting during the hunts, and she likes their trips, too.

Still. When she’s twenty-five, with Andruil’s vallaslin marked plainly on her face, she’s kind of expecting to be included.

“No,” Uthvir says. “Go fishing with Papa or something. These hunts are chaotic; I cannot be there to watch you all the time, and that is even more dangerous now that you are of age than when you were still a child.”

She stares at them in consternation.

“Why?” she wonders.

“Because. You are not ready yet,” they insists.

“I do well enough in the tournaments,” she points out. “You told me yourself, if I want to achieve a decent rank I am going to have to acquit myself well as a hunter. How can I do that if I am skipping hunts?”

“You are only twenty-five. No one expects you to participate yet,” Uthvir insists. But she can tell they’re dodging the question.

“Uthvir…”

“ _No,”_  they say, with a growl that brings her up short. “A few years yet. Just… give me that.”

She finds she can’t bring herself to argue with the look on their face right now. There’s something slightly _hunted_  to them, and it makes her very uncomfortable to recognize it. It’s like she’s backed them into a corner, and she didn’t even mean to.

“If you insist,” she agrees. “I will think of something else to do during the hunt.”

Uthvir nods, and gives her shoulder a quick squeeze before they walk by.

She doesn’t, in fact, press the issue. But a few days later she’s heading past Thenvunin’s chambers, after coming back early from one of her astrology lessons, and she hears the familiar sounds of arguing. 

“-needs to have good prospects,” Thenvunin is saying. “I understand your worries, but I could come and help keep an eye on her. In fact, I would insist upon it.”

“You could not protect her,” Uthvir says.

“Decry my skills all you like, they are still substantial. I can best most of your peers,” her papa argues.

“ _Most_  is not _all,”_  Uthvir counters.

“Who do you imagine would be this dangerous to our child?” Thenvunin demands.

“You cannot protect her from Andruil!” the hunter snaps.

The voices go quiet for a moment.

“Andruil?” Thenvunin asks. There is an odd tone to his voice. “What interest would she have in someone so young and inexperienced?”

“Plenty.”

“Why?”

She leans a little closer to the slightly-ajar door. Her mind races with old stories. Fen’Harel and the Tree; Andruil, demanding he serve her in bed for a year. Something in her chest clenches, and goes cold.

Uthvir sighs.

“Because, Andruil _favours_ me, Thenvunin. She lives to give me things just so she can take them away again, to remind me that she owns me, and therefore owns everything I care about. Why do you think she orchestrated this entire affair? She gave me a child so that I would love it, so that she could then take it away again. That is what she _does,”_ they snap. “She makes certain I know that every good thing comes from her, and can be taken again _by_  her. And she has given me something good; and now she will take it away again, just to prove that she can. But I _will not let her touch my child!”_

There is another long pause, broken only by the sounds of breathing.

Then the rapid sounds of footsteps, and the opening and closing of one of the chamber’s other doors.

She takes a step back, her mind reeling as she feels like all the pieces of a puzzle have just come together. The hunters’ reputations. Andruil’s. Uthvir’s nature. The look they had worn when she’d been given her vallaslin; and their insistence that she not go to any of Andruil’s holdings without them, that she not draw too much attention to herself, that she not participate in the Great Hunt…

When she’d been little, Thenvunin had tried to get Mythal to trade for her. Uthvir had been all for the idea. She had half thought they were eager to transfer the majority of their burden in caring for her; but now she suspects there was a wholly different motivation behind it all.

Slowly, she moves forwards again, and pushes open the door to the room.

Thenvunin is standing in the middle of it. Staring out the windows. He turns out the sound, though, and if his expression hadn’t already been fairly down, she thinks it would have fallen at the sight of her.

“Please tell me you did not hear that,” he asks.

She looks out one of the windows, too. Screecher is eating his breakfast.

“Want to help me kill Andruil, Papa?” she asks.

Thenvunin raises a hand as if to cover her mouth, and then retracts it again, and runs it over the top of his head.

“Do not suggest such a thing; not even in jest,” he insists.

Oh, but she isn’t jesting. Not even a little. It would be easy to set a trap for her, she thinks. Lure her out to kill some great beast. The evanuris would want to claim the kill for her own. A skilled enough person could probably even make it look like a tragic accident; like Andruil had simply bitten off more than she could chew, and had at last met her end at the jaws of a beast that proved too much. The others could then team up to kill the ‘monster’, and justice would be served, and everyone would move on.

With the frequency with which Ghilan’nain creates abominations in need of hunting, she might not even need to acquire a suitable prey item. Just wait for the next opportunity to arise, and set her trap around that. She’s fairly certain she could kill Andruil, as it stands. She might have to deal with a few accompanying hunters, too, but she can cross that bridge when she comes to it.

Reaching out, she pats her papa on the back.

“Of course,” she says. “You had better go and find Uthvir. Be nice to them.”

Thenvunin nods, briskly. She looks over, and is surprised to see a thin sheen of tears in his eyes. He presses a hand to his mouth, and then he, too, stalks out of the room. Pale as a ghost, with despair in his eyes.

Oh, yeah.

She is definitely killing Andruil.


	12. Revelations

My first thought at this was Thenvunin looking up at the night sky like ‘wish I may, wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight. Please, oh wishing star, let me see Uthvir naked’. XD

But here, have this! (Warnings for: Uthvir Secrets, Andruil Stuff Mentions, references to substantial unpleasantness involved with all that).

 

There are pieces adding up. 

Thenvunin is not certain that he can ignore them, all things considered.

There is his daughter to think of, after all. And there is Uthvir, too, and whatever… whatever can be said of them, they have raised a child together now. And the hunter has been a good parent. Thenvunin might despair of their lack of decorum, and might malign their influence, at times, but Lavellan loves Uthvir. The hunter is not so unfeeling a creature as to fail to love her back.

And, well. There is… there is a difference. Thenvunin could credit their daughter as a softening influence, he supposes. And time spent together, building not only familiarity but also attachment, and his own impeccable standards likely having an effect, and perhaps Uthvir almost certainly having a corrupting influence on Thenvunin, except…

Except.

Uthvir does not like to be touched.

Over the years Thenvunin has attributed that reluctance to any number of possibilities. Superiority, perhaps. A fetish for remaining fully clothed whilst having their partners naked and vulnerable. Hypocrisy. 

Security.

Fear.

Thenvunin had let the matter go. It was not as if he enjoyed being called upon to serve Uthvir’s lusts, he told himself. It was not as if any particular part of him had been excited by sliding his fingers inside of the hunter. Not really. It was Uthvir who had the insatiable desires, and Uthvir would feasted upon Thenvunin’s flesh, and it was true enough that Thenvunin did not need to see them unclothed or touch them on that account.

But there are other accounts, perhaps.

Things are different.

Thenvunin loves his daughter, and his daughter loves her nanae, and Uthvir loves her, and Thenvunin…

 _Cares_  about Uthvir.

And after today’s incident at Lavellan’s marking ceremony, there are many thoughts that Thenvunin cannot escape. That Andruil owns his child. That Andruil owns Uthvir. That Uthvir said… said…

…That Uthvir does not like to be touched.

That there are precious few who could, then, touch them without their leave.

Thenvunin thinks for a long while. He feels as though he has been paralysed. As if the world has flipped itself, and he has toppled from a neat and orderly shelf, of things that make sense, and fallen through a veil to find a nest of monsters lying in wait on the other side. To find that what he had once taken for monsters were little more than fierce-looking creatures. Lizards raising their frills. Birds puffing their feathers.

While cold-blooded snakes coiled around their nests.

Thenvunin swallows, and despite the late hour, makes his way to Uthvir’s chambers.

The hunter had been quiet upon their return from Andruil’s lands. Thenvunin had been concerned that they might have to stay behind. He had been trying not to think. 

His hand stills upon the doorknob.

He does not know what to do.

The realization stills him again. He does not know what to do. He does not know how he will react, if… he does not know what he _can_ do. He turns, and looks down the hall, towards his daughter’s room. His own child, he thinks, would not be so indecisive. She had gone to bed with a hard look on her face; a sharp glint to her gaze. Not fear. Anger. 

_Want to help me kill Andruil, Papa?_

There is no killing one of the leaders of the people.

But if his girl can be bold enough to even consider such a thing, Thenvunin supposes it would be entirely unbecoming of him to turn aside from what _can_  be done. Even if he does not know what it is.

He knocks.

Silence.

He knocks again.

The door opens. Slightly. Uthvir is still dressed, and the light is on. They stare at him for a moment.

“What is it?”

“We need to talk,” Thenvunin says, simply.

There is a pause, and Thenvunin is surprised to realize that he knows what Uthvir will do. That the hunter will sigh, and open the door wider; that this behaviour is in conflict with nearly everything Thenvunin has ever told himself about them. And yet, he knows it. He trusts it, and he is not at all surprised when that is precisely what happens.

The hunter beckons him in, and then closes the door behind him.

“I can distract Andruil,” Uthvir says. “She will be expecting me to try, but it will amuse her to think she is giving me false hope. She will let me make my efforts, just so that the sting will be all the more potent when she casually requests our daughter’s presence as soon as I show any signs of relaxing. But it buys us some time.”

The hunter does not look at him as they speak. Their gaze is slightly to the left of him; their arms folded, their back rigid. They look as tense as a coiled spring.

Thenvunin’s insides twist in cold horror. It has been a long time since he felt this useless.

“Distract her?” he asks. “How?”

Uthvir gives him a look. Their expression is flat. They try for a smirk, Thenvunin thinks; but somehow it looks more like a grimace to his eyes, now.

“I have my ways,” they say.

Thenvunin should not be concerned, he thinks. This is their daughter at stake. He should let Uthvir do anything and everything to keep her safe; and he will, when it comes to it. But his insides are twisting and his chest feels hollowed out, and there are no excuses, right now. There are no explanations. He has felt all of Uthvir’s sharp points press into him, and none of them have ever left a mark.

He is not afraid of the hunter’s touch.

Slowly, he moves closer. Uthvir glances at him, questioning.

Thenvunin halts a bare distance from them, and suddenly sinks into indecision. What should he do? He looks at Uthvir’s face, and feels his insides twist, and his mind is blank. He knows this face. He has seen it almost every day for twenty-five years now. Its sharp angles, and red markings, and twisting smirks; dire scowls. The mocking lift of those brows, and the rare softening of those eyes.

His hand rises, and he presses his palm to the hunter’s cheek.

“Uthvir,” he says.

Uthvir stills. Their eyes widen. They twitch, oddly, but stay where they are; standing in front of Thenvunin, in all their armour, with their arms folded across their chest. Ready for a battlefield, even in their own bedroom. Though not always, Thenvunin thinks. He has seen them in soft clothes. In relaxed countenance. He has seen them at ease.

He brushes his thumb across their cheek.

Uthvir’s mouth opens, and then closes again.

“What will she do to you?” Thenvunin asks.

“Nothing she has not done before,” Uthvir says. “It is alright, Thenvunin; do not trouble yourself on my account.”

There is a wry tone to their voice. Mocking, but Thenvunin finds he cannot muster the reserves to even bristle at it.

“When have you ever been anything but trouble?” he asks, instead. There is no heat to it, though. Only a brittleness, and an unexpectedly watery quality. His eyes burn. His chest feels heavy, and his throat goes thick. His thumb tracks its way across Uthvir’s cheek again as the image of the hunter blurs, a bit, losing its distinction behind a film of tears.

The air goes sharp with alarm.

Thenvunin shakes, and chokes on a sob.

He raises his free hand to his mouth, but the dam has burst. Tears roll down his cheeks. His shoulders shake. His face feels hot enough to burn up the tracks of moisture trailing down it. The world dissolved entirely as he is lost to the flood.

For a moment, all he does is stand there and cry. It is all he _can_  do, it seems.

Uthvir’s hand closes around his arm.

“Here, now,” the hunter says. “I will keep her safe, Thenvunin.” The hand on his arm draws him towards the small couch in the room, and as he tries to swallow back another sob, Uthvir gets him to sit. The hunter presents him with a handkerchief - one of Thenvunin’s own; where it came from, though, he cannot say - and their touch moves to his shoulder.

“Our girl simply has to acquit herself well in front of Mythal,” Uthvir insists. “She is grown now; there are more opportunities for her to demonstrate her worth. We have to make Mythal willing to really _fight_  Andruil for her. To make her an offer that appeals to Andruil’s desire for preference and appeasement. Much as she might favour me, I do not hold a candle to the esteem she has for her mother. It will amuse her far more to have Mythal bending towards her than to yank my chains again.”

Yes, Thenvunin thinks. He supposes he can work with that. Lavellan is very special; he can help Mythal see why. He may even tell her what, precisely, is at stake; Mythal is not like her daughter. He has always known that, but he has never really stopped to consider just quite how deep the differences ran. Nor what it might truly mean, for Andruil’s hunters to be as they are; a reflection of their lady.

 _Savages,_  he calls them. _Insatiable lust-driven beasts._

Uthvir squeezes his shoulder reassuringly.

He reaches up, and closes his own grip over top of their gauntlet.

 _I am sorry,_ Thenvunin thinks. He is. He is so sorry, because it is different. What Uthvir has done to… with him, and what Andruil will do to them, and _has_  done to them. It is different. It has to be different. What she would do to their daughter, even in ambiguous potential, makes him sick with dread. But still, he will let Uthvir do this. Because he does not know what else to do. Because this is true helplessness, in face of assault, and it is so very, very different from any ropes which Uthvir has carefully wound around his unresisting limbs.

_You have to give me a word._

Thenvunin drops his face into his hands, and shakes.

At length, Uthvir’s touch retracts. When it returns, it is softer; gauntlets gone. Their hand runs across his shoulders. Long, soothing strokes, and Thenvunin cannot take it. He cannot take it. They are comforting him; and he is not surprised by it, not at all.

“Uthvir,” he finds himself saying. “Please, Uthvir.” He does not know what he is even asking for. It is incoherent nonsense; and he is making a spectacle of himself, weeping on Uthvir’s couch, when out of everyone in their little family, he has the least to fear.

Uthvir’s touch stills, briefly; and then it moves to Thenvunin’s hair. Brushing it back from his tear-soaked face.

“What do you need?” the hunter asks, moving around until they are in front of him. They look down at him.

Thenvunin stares at them, standing over him.

His arms seem to reach of their own accord. They close around the hunter’s waist, as Uthvir goes rigid, and Thenvunin presses into the hard angles of them. His forehead crushes against their stomach, and he weeps, and he begs forgiveness.

“I am so sorry, Uthvir. I am so sorry. I am sorry. Please, please. I am so sorry.”

It is like hugging a statue. There is a long, still silence, as shocked and apprehensive and confused as anything. And then Uthvir’s hands come around him. They press at his shoulders, pushing him back. Firmly, but not ungently.

“Thenvunin,” Uthvir says.

Their own expression looks a little lost.

Thenvunin bursts into yet more tears. He cannot help it. He feels like he has broken entirely apart. Like everything inside of him has just come spiralling down; a teacup cast off of the top of a table. Smashing into a wall, all jagged pieces and crushed powder, with his insides spilling between the floorboards.

Uthvir keeps their hands on his shoulders.

“Breathe, Thenvunin,” they say. “In through the nose, out through the mouth. Whatever you are apologizing for, I forgive you.”

He takes their advice.

After a moment they pull the handkerchief from his unresisting fingers, and swipe it across his face for him. _Undignified,_  he thinks. _Humiliating. Weak._  But the voices feel tiny, and distant, and somehow more like descriptions of their own impulses in him than true assessments of the situation, as some of the cold horror in his chest eases, just a bit. 

Uthvir’s gaze is cool and assessing, and coloured ever-so-slightly by worry.

“She will be alright,” the hunter reiterates for him.

Thenvunin swallows.

“You will not,” he says.

The hands on him tighten, just a bit. Almost like a flinch, really. Uthvir blinks, and then steps back a little.

“I will survive,” they say. 

Thenvunin stares at them.

“What if… what if it were me?” he wonders. He is very good-looking, after all. “Andruil knows we raised her together. You say she likes to take things from you. I doubt it would take much to convince her that I was yours, too. I could-”

“No.”

Uthvir’s voice is hard and cold and final.

Thenvunin glares at them.

“And why not?” he demands. “It would work, wouldn’t it? And she has had you before, as you say; she has not had me. It may distract her for longer, and buy us more time…”

“I need you to convince Mythal to take our daughter,” Uthvir interrupts, sharply.

“You could do that. Any number of my contacts would help as well,” Thenvunin counters.

The hunter’s gaze narrows.

“It would be less practical,” the insist.

“Perhaps. Perhaps it would be less horrifying,” Thenvunin suggests. His gut twists, and bile rises in the back of his throat, and he feels like he is floating separate of himself as he speaks. But the words come, anyway. They rise up, as if summoned from the depths of him by some unseen spirit. “I am certain you have realized by now that I _enjoy_  being prevailed upon. That I am of the sort who likes being dominated. If one of us must do this, should it not be the one who…”

“ _No.”_

Uthvir _snarls_  the word, and the air trembles, and the lights flicker. Thenvunin stares at them, and then back towards the hunter. Their hands are fisted at their sides. The muscles in their arms shake, and they look hunted and furious and dangerous, besides.

It would be incredibly inappropriate to feel just a little bit aroused right now.

…Thenvunin’s arousal has never been appropriate.

But in this case it is only momentary; a single shock inspired by the image, before the reality of the situation sweeps all else away again. Uthvir unclenches their hands, with an obvious force of effort, and raises them. They run them across their face, and suck in a hissed breath; half curse.

“You would not enjoy what Andruil would do to you,” they say. “It would not be like what I do to you.”

Thenvunin swallows.

“…I know,” he admits.

“You do not,” the hunter counters.

They regard him with that intent, wavering, furious stare for a long moment. Thenvunin does not know what to say to it. He still, he thinks, has no idea what he is doing. The gnawing helplessness in him is a force to be reckoned with. It feels bigger than he himself is; eating through his bones and seeping down the back of the couch. Glueing him in place.

Uthvir stares. Then they reach up, and begin unfastening their armour.

Thenvunin does not know quite what to make of it. He watches as they unbind their pauldrons and chest plate, as they pull off their boots and shin guards and the spikes along their thighs. They take themselves apart before his eyes, piece by piece, with rigid efficiency; until they are left in dark red clothes that cover them head to toe. Then they pull off their vest, and their outer shirt; and they are in only a thin, black undershirt, which leaves their golden arms bare.

Their eyes lock with Thenvunin’s.

Then they lift off the undershirt.

Their skin is beautiful. Thenvunin can admit it, because it is undeniably so; it is a smooth, golden expanse, stretching across firm muscles that hold a wiry strength far greater than appearances would betray. There are no freckles, no blemishes, and no scars that Thenvunin can see. It is Uthvir; bereft of surprises, a simple continuation of the flesh that he has already glimpsed from hands and face and neck and wrists, forearms and biceps.

And then they turn.

Thenvunin’s breath stops cold in his chest.

Uthvir’s back is…

Not unblemished.

It is more scarring than Thenvunin has ever seen in his life. The mottled skin spreads out from Uthvir’s spine; many gashes, all stretching from a central web that tears down the middle of their back, only stopping just shy of the waistband of their pants. The cuts are neat. There is a quality of deliberation to most of them, save perhaps the central devastation. But the lines are not the gauging marks of massive claws, he recognizes; they are the neat cuts of a sharpened blade.

Thenvunin stares.

He is rising without much particular thought as to why. Uthvir turns, and he halts; their gaze is closed off. Neutral. They drop their undershirt to the floor, and their throat bobs as they swallow.

“Not pretty, I know,” they say. “She likes to leave a mark. Luckily, she has already bestowed mine. I discovered a talent for changing my shape in certain ways, when my rank was still new. I shared it. My mistake. Andruil has never managed wings, you know. Most of her family can sprout them as they please, but she is an exception to the rule. She is _deeply impressed_  that I can achieve it myself, and so very pleased to have her trophies. And that is only the most visible thing she does.”

Thenvunin thinks, of how very good and quick Uthvir is at assessing damage that might be done to sensitive body parts in the bedroom.

And then he turns, and empties his stomach.

The nausea is a rising roar, carried up by fear and horror and disgust and an unexpected anguish that rips right through him. She did… and she would do it to… and she will do it, _again…_

Thenvunin is shaking.

His head is ringing.

The floor is covered in filth, and Uthvir is covered in scars, and he hears Lavellan’s voice - _want to help me kill Andruil, Papa?_  - and he thinks _lady, forgive me_  because he does. It is impossible; but he does.

He retches until the worst of the nausea passes. Then he heaves in a breath, and turns.

Uthvir has their shirt back on. Their arms are folded, and their gaze is fixed out of the window. After a few seconds, they glance back towards him.

“Finished?” they ask.

Thenvunin swallows back the sour taste in his mouth, and nods.

A long, confused silence stretches between them.

This is not, Thenvunin finds himself thinking, how it is supposed to go. He is not certain how it _is_  supposed to go, but it is not supposed to be this. His child should not be in danger; and his… and Uthvir should not be, be like this. Scarred and quiet and ready to walk into the mouth of the dragon that marked them. This is not how it should be. It is wrong. All of it, everything, is entirely wrong. He is wrong. He does not fit in this place. Uthvir chose their partner poorly; he cannot protect his child and he cannot protect them, and he barely knows what to do with himself. He is not what they need. They need someone who could protect them both. 

Someone who could have seen that they both needed protecting far sooner.

“It is damage already done,” Uthvir says, quietly. “It will not hurt me more to do it again. I have danced this dance before.”

“It does not work like that,” Thenvunin snaps. “If you are stabbed in the ribs, it does not mean that you will be fine if you get stabbed in the ribs again!”

“One does become versed in healing stab wounds, though,” Uthvir replies, just a touch wry.

Thenvunin deflates.

“No,” he says. The word flies out, in defiance of the whole scenario before him, it seems, rather than in any kind of coherent argument. Coherency is gone. Sense is gone. They are all just tumbling through the wind, at this point.

“You see? This is why you cannot do it. You would say something like that and she would take offence,” Uthvir replies. Their manner, it seems, is recovering a bit. They are breezier; dismissive. “When choosing candidates for a vital mission, it is important to consider experience. That is all, Thenvunin. You are a better choice for appealing to Mythal; and I am a better choice for handling Andruil.”

Thenvunin shakes his head. He cannot find the words for this.

At length, Uthvir moves towards him. Their steps are tentative; as if they do no know what to expect from him. They stop short of him, and reach, gingerly for his arm. When Thenvunin does not move, they settle their hand against him.

“You should rest,” they advise. “Nothing will happen tonight.”

Uthvir is sharp. Hard angles; pointed teeth and nails. Keen eyes, and red markings. They are painted in warning signs.

They are paralysing.

Their grip changes, a bit, and they start trying to coax Thenvunin towards the door; and then a second later it seems they change their mind, and draw him towards their bed, instead. He goes along with it. Lets them move him, and push him down to the covers, and tug off his clothes. He has let them do that plenty of times; but this is different. There are no hungry eyes or groping touches, no claws drawing their way down exposed skin, or lips sealing themselves to his.

Uthvir strips him down and gets him under the covers, and brushes a strand of hair back from his face, and Thenvunin cannot stand it.

He catches their hand.

“I am sorry,” he says.

Uthvir looks down at him, brows furrowing.

“Thenvunin. You did not do this,” they say. “This is not your design, and it is not your fault. If anything, I should be apologizing to you. I knew what was at play, and I used you. You were outside of Andruil’s sphere. You could save my child, or at least give me the best chance for it, so I let her become _our_  child. I let you love her and I let you help me, and now you are suffering for it.”

He stares at the them.

_I used you._

Oh it would be so easy to let that stand. To be outraged at Uthvir’s vile machinations; to let them leave to fulfil their plan with disdain for them numbing him to the knowledge of what it will cost them. 

But.

The sentiment stands at odds with the ferocity Uthvir had shown before, when Thenvunin had offered himself in their stead. They had used him for what? To help raise their child? To try and protect her? As if Thenvunin would begrudge them that; as if he could judge them for it, when he himself will let them go and do this to protect her, too.

“I love her,” he says.

“I know,” Uthvir replies, and their hand moves his grasp, and clutches him back.

_I love…_

Thenvunin closes his eyes.

After a moment, Uthvir squeezes his hand, and then lowers it back to the bed.

“Get some sleep,” they say.

His fingers curl against theirs.

It is a force of effort to let them go.


	13. Confessions

Uthvir leaves.

Thenvunin stands in front of an eluvian, knowing he will watch Uthvir leave. To go to Arlathan. To Andruil’s holdings. To Andruil, and the things she will do to them, for the sake of… what? Amusement? Gratification? Some sick impulse driven by pettiness and selfishness and sadism?

His stomach twists itself into knots.

A gauntleted hand closes on his shoulder. Uthvir is not very tall. They are not very big. In Thenvunin’s mind they are quite capable of looming, of filling up a room, of bearing down on their target with overwhelming presence. But he looks at them standing next to him, and really. They are not very big. Beneath all those spikes and plates and armour and layers, they are just flesh and blood. Bones and scars.

“I have every confidence in your ability to look after her, Thenvunin,” they say, with uncommon seriousness. Lavellan is not here, though. Neither of them would subject her to this; and she is too clever, too keen, too apt to sense the wrongness of the mood and put it together with what she has overheard, and act rashly. 

“I have every confidence in your ability to survive,” he declares, though his throat feels thick, and the words jam oddly in it.

Uthvir smirks.

Uthvir nods.

Uthvir leaves.

Thenvunin lets them.

He stands there for a long while, afterwards. As if he has forgotten how to move. The gleam of the eluvian has been absent for nearly an hour before he finally turns, and heads back up the road.

He makes his way back to the palace, and to his chambers there. For a moment he simply stands in the front parlour. The birds are singing in the garden. Lavellan is with one of her tutors. The rooms are silent, and still, and hollow in their familiarity. Thenvunin finds himself looking them over as if he is only properly seeing them for the first time.

A few decades ago, his chambers were smaller. They were fashionably furnished and decorated, and in many ways, unlived-in. The rooms which saw the most use were the bedroom and the garden, and the store room adjacent to it, where he kept what he needed to tend to his birds. Everything else had been more or less a matter of display. Something to look nice for visitors. Something to reflect Thenvunin’s taste and status.

And now, they are… this.

Floor-to-ceiling windows out to the garden, that he’d had put in place of the original archways when Lavellan was small, so that she could toddle right up to the glass and look out as she pleased, but not go disappearing into the foliage as soon as Thenvunin’s back was turned. Comfortable chairs situated around the parlour, for when his daughter is entertaining guests, because his child is more concerned with people being at ease than impressed. Bookshelves lined with tomes on any and all manner of subjects that might interest a young, growing person. Weapons’ racks next to the front hall, because Uthvir had refused to be constantly going back and forth from the armoury, or to trust Mythal’s servants with their belongings; and then Lavellan had taken up martial combat, too, and it wasn’t as if Thenvunin did not have his own talents, so Uthvir’s weapon’s rack had grown and become everyone’s. There are trophies on the walls, and every corner has been softened, and there is a small knife and a cloth left on one of the little tables, where Uthvir had been polishing it and left it behind.

He stares at it for a moment, and then finds himself heading towards the hall. To Lavellan’s room, which is neat and tidy but not often well-decorated, as his child seems to prefer to just hoard whatever items she develops an attachment to, rather than plan out the aesthetics of her space. To his own room, which, despite being his alone, shows signs of change and invasion as well. Some of Uthvir’s clothes in the closet. Some of Lavellan’s old toys in the corner chest. His daughter’s paintings on the walls, where Thenvunin can admire them without having to care for the opinions of guests. His… Uthvir’s…

Uthvir supplied the bedside table’s contents.

And the hooks on the bedposts.

Thenvunin thinks of beds and Uthvir and then he thinks of what Andruil’s bed must be like, and all he can envision is a bedroom spattered with blood. He turns, and leaves, and before he is even thinking of it, he is in Uthvir’s room. Uthvir’s room, with its hideous burgundy wing-back chair, and its desk, and its couch, and fireplace, and the bed Thenvunin had spent last night sleeping in. Only to wake and find Uthvir standing by the unlit fireplace. Staring into the ash.

_You let them go._

It is too much.

Thenvunin flees, again, and goes back to his daughter’s room. He sits in one of her dark green chairs, and puts his arms on the table, and drops his face into them.

And he weeps.

Great, stuttering sobs tear out of him once again; decorum abandoned, but at least this time he has solitude. He tries to tell himself that is better - that is preferable - but his mind snags on the reality of  _why_  he is alone right now, every time, and he finds he cannot.

“Papa?”

He jolts nearly straight out of his skin. The sound of his daughter’s voice cuts clean through his despair; but in his startled state, he has no hope of swiftly reigning in the emotions that he had let spill free. He turns, attempting to swiftly and discreetly wipe the tears from his face before she can find him. But it is a futile effort. Lavellan is already standing in the doorway of her room. The markings on her face are still a shock to see, he finds. 

Though he will never say so - since she must wear them until Thenvunin can secure a better future for her - he does not think they suit. Those stark, angry red lines. He thinks of Andruil -  _I will write you in red -_ and everything inside of him goes slick and chill and he does not know what to do.

Lavellan’s worry washes over him.

She moves into the room, frowning, brows furrowed as she comes to his side. Thenvunin is at a loss, again. The beginnings of a bad habit. His daughter places a comforting hand to his back, as she takes in the miserable picture he must make.

“Papa, what is wrong?” she asks. “Where is Uthvir?”

She glances towards the hall, and Thenvunin finds himself wishing - not quite for the first time - that she was just little bit less like her nanae. These sharp-eyed hunters, who can notice in a moment what he would miss with a lifetime and a map, it seems.

“Uthvir had to go attend to some matters in the city,” Thenvunin dutifully reports. He manages a somewhat weak smile. “Do not mind me, little heart. I am just… just, tired.”

Lavellan stares at him for a long moment. He watches her look him over, and then look back down the hall again, to Uthvir’s empty room, and then out of the window for a moment. Then she looks back. She smiles, gently; and leans down and kisses his cheek.

“Get some rest, Papa,” she says. “I am going riding. Curiosity wanted to see what a saddled hart looks like, so we are taking to the north path with some of the scouts. I will be back in the evening, and we can dine together.”

Thenvunin finds he can do little more than agree, and be grateful that his child is tactful enough not to press the matter. He is certain he has not convinced her that this display is the result of mere exhaustion. But then, she is a kind soul, when it comes to it. Uthvir sometimes scoffs when Thenvunin says that their daughter is sweet and gentle and soft-hearted, but it is true; though she is also fierce and willful and unyielding.

He does not consider that it is still early morning, and that a full day’s absence is a great deal of time to spend on a simple ride. 

After Lavellan has gone, he makes himself get up, and tend to his birds. They are, as ever, rather sensitive to his moods; and so he finds himself serenaded, and groomed, and nipped at. Old Screecher, the nuisance, follows him around letting out distressed shrieks, alternately demanding treats and then giving them back to him. Contrary creature. He sits in the garden for most of the morning, swarmed with feathers and chirps and clacking little beaks, until he breaks down sobbing again.

At noon he goes and gets his best sword from the weapon’s rack. He polishes and sharpens it, and then sheaths it at his belt. He gets his armour, too; the best fighting set he has, and he thinks about going to the city, and to Andruil’s holdings, and killing her. He has killed elves before. He wonders, if he was swift enough and unexpected enough, could he do it before she realized she was in danger? Before she took on a dragon’s shape, or brought the might of her magic to bear, and likely obliterated him where he stood?

Could he?

_Leave them alone._

_Leave my family alone._

_They are mine, not yours. Mine. My daughter. My… my…_

Thenvunin goes to the practice yard, and he envisions that the targets are all the great lady hunter, and he destroys them as thoroughly as he can with blows and spells until half the yard is staring at him in consternation, and Rage has come and is trailing his steps, silent but intrigued. He is panting when he leaves, and halfway down the road before he realizes he is heading for the eluvian outside the eastern gate, and stops himself.

He cannot defeat Andruil.

Uthvir cannot defeat Andruil. And Thenvunin, come to it, cannot defeat Uthvir. All he could do would be to go and die; and then there would be no one to tie Lavellan to Mythal, and no point to Uthvir’s suffering. And his daughter’s would inevitably follow.

With a bitter curse, Thenvunin turns, and heads back again.

After an hour of pacing through his chambers again, he forces himself to calm. He changes. He goes, and attends his duties. And he attends Mythal, and he makes himself stay  _calm._  He speaks abundantly of his daughter’s virtues; but as she has only just taken on her markings, no one expects any different from him. Still. He mentions her skills, and how quickly she has progressed, and how mature and sensible she is, and how it truly is a disgrace that so many fine combatants should be relegated to the ranks of other leaders, when Mythal is known for her tactical greatness and wiles. Should not a great military leader have great warriors at her disposal?

And he thinks of telling her. He thinks of telling her the whole truth, and simply falling to his knees and  _begging._

But then he thinks also of his hunter daughter. And he imagines what he would do, if some servant came to him, and disparaged her, and implied that she had done something so heinous as to torture her own servants in bed, and his tongue stills. He would never accept it. He would never believe it; his only recourse would be to punish those who dared slander his child.

Lavellan would never do such a thing.

Andruil would.

But Thenvunin is not certain if Mythal could believe that of her own child.

_Lady, forgive me._

He ends out the day unable to contain his misery for much longer, and retreats as soon as he can, lest he inflict it upon the wrong target and invite too many questions. He has likely caused enough rumours as it is.

Lavellan returns late in the evening. He is sitting in the garden again, watching the sky darken, and is ashamed to realize that he had not even realized she was late until he sees her again. She is carrying plates from the dining hall, and looks windswept and tired, but calm. Her emotions wash over him like a soothing touch, and he is ashamed twice over that she should feel obliged to comfort him.

She sets their plates upon the outdoor table beside him, and sits down quietly.

“Did you rest, Papa?” she asks.

He looks at her, and swallows, and nods.

“Eat,” she advises, then. “And do not look so embarrassed. I am officially an adult, now. I am allowed to take care of you, too.”

“I am quite fine,” he insists.

Lavellan looks at him, steadily, and her stare ably conveys just how convincing she finds him at the moment.

But again, she does not press. She only pushes his place towards him, and his glass. After, Thenvunin could not say what he actually ate. Only that it tasted like dust, but looked like food; and that Lavellan was quiet and careful with him, and when they were finished, brought him back inside with her.

Thenvunin notices, then, the red mark on her wrist. Frowning in a sudden rush of concern, he holds her arm and pulls back her sleeve. But there’s no injury, he realizes. Just a slash of blood on her skin, dried and flaking, but persistent.

Lavellan blinks.

“Did you go hunting on your ride?” Thenvunin wonders.

His daughter swallows, and shifts in a nervous fashion that betrays the answer.

“Maybe,” she concedes.

“What did you kill?” he wonders. If it was anything impressive, there will be consequences with Mythal.

“Only a hare,” Lavellan insists. “It was a sickly thing. I did the world a favour by getting rid of it.”

“Did you burn the body?” Thenvunin asks. A sickly hare should not merit much concern from anyone, but it will be easier still if she destroyed the evidence.

“Oh, yes,” his daughter says. “There was not a scrap of it left after.”

Her tone is odd.

Looking up, Thenvunin discovers that her gaze is distant, and hard. He feels another rush of concern. But then she looks at him and smiles, gentle and reassuring, and he is not sure what stray mood might have taken things over for a moment. She bids him goodnight, claiming exhaustion - and in her case, he suspects it to be true - and he stays up a long while, before retiring himself.

He retreats to his chambers. He puts on his night clothes, and lies in his bed.

He is spent. Broken. Twisted and torn up inside. Sleep does not come for many hours. And when it does it gives way to sinking dreams, of hunters and chains and blood, until he feels strong, slender arms close around him, and jolts back to his bedroom.

A warm body settles against him, curling at his back. He recognizes the quality of change in the air, and wonders if he is still dreaming. He must be; Uthvir is with Andruil, having unspeakable things done to them. There is no chance they could have climbed into Thenvunin’s bed with him.

He turns in the arms holding him, though, and it feels very real as they loosen enough to let him, and he finds Uthvir is with him. Dressed in tight, dark clothes, and settled against one of his pillows.

A dream.

Thenvunin leans in, and kisses them.

In over two and a half thousand years, he has instigated very few kisses. But he has been kissed many times; and many times by these lips. He presses his own against them, seeking, and gentle, and when they part to let out a surprised breath, he curls an arm around their owner. Careful not to touch too much of their back; but eager, still, to steal away just this moment while he can.

When he pulls back, Uthvir is staring at him, wide-eyed.

“You kissed me,” they say.

Thenvunin does it again.

“Uthvir,” he whispers against them. It seems he is at a loss for any other comment. The hunter’s hands clench, briefly, around him, and then pull him close. They press a kiss of their own to him. Hungry, and thorough, and less sharp than most. Their nails dig into him, just a bit, and their tongue slides against his. Chests and hips snug together, legs tangling, hands tight upon one another. One of Thenvunin’s own slides to the hem of Uthvir’s shirt, and he ventures it beneath, carefully brushing his touch across the smooth skin of their stomach. The hunter shivers. They break away from him, eyes glittering in the dark as their breaths intermingle.

“Are you a dream?” Thenvunin finally asks them. It feels too warm for that. Too rife with details that his own sleeping mind would tend to gloss over.

Uthvir’s eyes close, and they tilt their head just slightly towards him; as if to press their forehead to him, but stopping just short.

“Andruil got word of some strange prey this morning,” Uthvir says. “She has not returned yet. There seemed little point in staying and waiting for her to, when this whole endeavour is meant to be a distraction. I…” they trail off. After a moment, their eyes open again, and fix upon Thenvunin’s face.

“I wanted to come home.”

The words are so quiet. So very, very quiet, and Thenvunin thinks of the day he has spent, wandering through their chambers, and warring with his helpless misery. Of the morning, and watching Uthvir walk through the eluvian. He will have to do it again, when Andruil returns. Perhaps, in a sense, it would have been a courtesy not to endure that moment for a second time. But no. Uthvir is here, and even if he must let them go again, Thenvunin decides he would rather that. Rather this, and whatever it might cost.

“You are in my bed,” he notes.

There is a slight pause.

“So I am,” Uthvir says, ever-so-slightly wry.

“You came home, and climbed into my bed,” Thenvunin persists, closing a hand over the hunter’s hip.

“You _are_ always saying I am insatiable,” Uthvir points out.

“You came home, climbed into my bed, and hugged me,” he concludes, his mind settling around the thought, as some spark of stability in amidst all of this chaos beckons it forwards. It is terrifying. It is as terrifying as any other admission he has ever made, even quietly, to himself. But he thinks he has also known it for far longer than any quarter of him would care to concede.

“You kissed me,” Uthvir adds.

“Of course I did! I spent all day worrying about you, and then suddenly you were here, like a dream,” Thenvunin says, more brittle than bristling. “Of course I kissed you. I love you.”

There is a pause.

Thenvunin reviews.

Did he say that?

Yes… yes, it seems he did.

“You do not love me,” Uthvir says, gentle but also somewhat darkly amused. “You have gotten yourself all tangled up, Thenvunin.”

He really does bristle, then.

“As if I would mistake such a thing! Or you would know my own feelings better than I do!”

“Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but-”

“Do not start with that. I may be… hesitant to accept some things but I am not, I would not… I would not say it if I was not certain,” he insists.

One of Uthvir’s hands curls around his neck. The hunter’s gaze is half-lidded, assessing and little cool, now. Particularly given the circumstances. Thenvunin does not know what to make of it. And then the air changes. The ambiguous warmth and undefined sense of wanting in it wraps around him. A tentative inquiry. He does not even have to think, or debate, or delay, before he meets it. It charges the whole room, it seems, with a rush of connection and attachment, desire and affection.

Uthvir’s eyes go wide.

Thenvunin sags against the pillows, overwhelmed all over again. The world is still firmly inverted, and his heart is hammering in his chest, now. There is a tinny, shrill voice in the back of his mind demanding to know how this happened, how he has handed his heart to _Uthvir_ , of all people; but there is another voice, too, and it raises itself in haughty disdain of the first. ‘Uthvir, of all people’ it mocks. ‘Uthvir, who has raised a child with you. Uthvir, who touches you and kisses you and takes you, because you want them to. Uthvir, who is beautiful, and fierce, and strong, and has suffered, and still comes to you even though you cannot protect them’.

‘Of course you fell in love with them,’ says that voice. ‘You were always falling in love with them.’

Thenvunin sighs, cracked and crumbling, and somehow the sound distorts into something a little more tearful at the finish.

Uthvir’s hand moves up to his face, and caresses his cheek. There is wonder in their expression.

“Thenvunin,” they say, voice cracking on his name. “Thenvunin. You really are so foolish sometimes.”

“Now what kind of a response to a love confession is that?” he demands, though the indignation he attempts to summon is nowhere to be found.

Uthvir answers with a kiss.


	14. Authority

Andruil is quite unexpectedly dead.

There is a lot to unpack in that twist of reality. Matters of how and why, and the inevitable repercussion of having the delicate balance of power at the top of society’s scales suddenly upturned. There is talk among some of the higher ranking hunters that the strongest of Andruil’s servants might take her place. That anyone who could take on the form of the dragon might rise up to claim the emptied throne, now.

Uthvir is not a fool. There is a reason the leaders of the people are all kin to one another, and there will be no replacements. Not yet, and not from such ranks as theirs. Most of the more skilled hunters endeavour to maintain discipline in hopes of increasing their odds of seizing greatness for themselves. Some do it because they know that the weakness of Andruil’s absence might incite the Nameless to invade their territory. The wisest keep order simply in hopes of earning enough notoriety to gain the favour of another leader.

Uthvir does it because they cannot see things improving much if they fail to; and because if the floor is going to fall out, for good or ill, then part of them cannot help but scramble to find whatever footing may be had again.

“Do you know who manages the census records for our people?” Uthvir asks of the insolent mid-ranking hunter before them. The one who killed a servant this morning, in a fit of power-drunk pique, as near as they can tell.

“Nehnalin?” the hunter guesses. Bristling for a fight. Certain that if they can strike at the right moment, that if they can prove themselves _stronger,_  they will achieve something that they otherwise could not have under Andruil’s rule.

Uthvir smirks.

“No. As of yesterday, I do. And that means that I am the only one keeping track of how many of you peons are available to be bartered off as cattle as soon as the leaders resolve their arguments. If someone disappears off of the list, I know it. If _you_  disappear off of the list, no one else will care.”

The hunter makes their move.

Uthvir smacks them into the nearest wall almost negligently, with an impact strong enough to break wood and crack bone. The fool has enough viciousness and strength to catch the unwary off-guard and do some damage, but striking headlong at a trained fighter who is expecting it, they are insultingly inept.

“My twenty-five-year-old daughter could put you through a wall without even breaking a sweat, you useless sack of blood,” they drawl, and close one hand over the mid-ranking hunter’s throat before they can recover.

Time to make a point, they think.

As the fool gibbers and scrabbles at their fingers, Uthvir drags them into the main hall, where most of the hunters are gathered in an effort to organize the inventory. The activity stalls a bit as they dig their fingers in, drawing blood and lightly choking the hunter they are drawing along with them.

Once most everyone is watching, they lift the mid-ranking hunter up by their increasingly mangled neck.

Then they turn to the others.

“The only person in this hall who can get away with murder now is _me_. If any of you kill anyone else, you will answer to _me_. And as I do not have Andruil’s strength, I may be clumsier in executing my punishments. I may not be able to neatly kill all of you. I may do sloppier work.”

On that note, they toss the mid-ranking hunter into the nearest fire.

There is a lot of screaming and flailing and of course, it does not actually kill them. They press panicked hands to their bloodied throat and scramble out of the fire pit, and Uthvir gives it a few minutes before gesturing sharply at one of the healers, and moving off to tend to other matters.

They would rather be elsewhere, they think. They would rather not be dealing with this mess; even if it is, perhaps, a preferable one to the mess they had anticipated dealing with. There are too many uncertainties. So far they have been able to cope with it, but it is gnawing at them. Andruil was many terrible things, but she was also a familiar sort of disaster. Uthvir had learned how to traverse her. How to survive her.

And they had been indebted to her.

This, though… this is unfamiliar ground.

After a moment’s consideration, they detour to their chambers. In a top drawer they have a few things. An old toy of Lavellan’s, long discarded for more interesting diversions. One of the first arrows she ever fletched. A couple of Thenvunin’s scarves, soft and colourful. A few other trinkets and assorted miscellany. 

They run a finger over the toy and then pluck up a scarf. Inhale the lingering scents on it, just for a moment, and feel something in them steady a little.

The two of them are safe and sound, in their quiet gardens, and Lavellan will be alright. Thenvunin will convince Mythal to take her. He will not suffer any less savoury leader to lay claim to her, will not let her fall into the hands of someone who might sacrifice or abuse her. 

Uthvir only has their own neck to watch out for, and it is much better that way.

Even if they know, deep down, the likelihood of whose grasp they will now fall into.

After a moment, they tuck the scarf back into the drawer, and then head off to go and deal with things again.


	15. Wedding

Andruil does not come back from her hunt.

The first few days are tense, as Uthvir returns to the city, and then comes home in the evenings, always with the same results. Thenvunin does his best to secure their daughter’s future, and feels all the while like he is waiting for some great axe to drop. There is a dragging dread that haunts his footsteps every time Uthvir leaves, and he only gains a reprieve from it when night falls, and he lies awake, and waits to see if he will feel the familiar dip of the mattress beside him.

For a week of nights, he does.

They are strange nights, by their standards. Uthvir peels off their armour, and lies in bed with him. Sometimes they share whispered conversations. More often, though, they are both quiet, and his hunter seems at once to lean into his presence, and draw subtly away from touch. They kiss, and sometimes Uthvir presses up against his back, and draws him close. But the air is too strange, it seems, for their more typical interactions. And then in the morning, they leave again, and Thenvunin fights the urge to scream.

Only Lavellan, mercifully unaware of all the elements at play, is unaffected by the strange moods between them. She is quiet and steady and supportive, and Thenvunin is glad that her usual, sometimes inconvenient perceptiveness has faltered from this revelation, at least. Though he and Uthvir do their absolute best to keep her away from any hint of their disquiet, too.

Still, she seems to know that they are both ill at ease, as she is uncommonly gentle and patient with them.

And then the end of the week comes, and Thenvunin goes to bed; and he lies awake all night, until the grey light of dawn spills across the sky, because there is no dip in his mattress. The door to the room does not open. No hand folds the covers back; no warm body climbs up against him.

He presses a pillow to his face, and really does scream, then.

Panic twists and claws through him, and he cannot help it. He is up and dressing as swiftly as he ever had; as he used to do during war time. He is uncommonly unadorned when he leaves, barely sparing the thought to write a note for his daughter, to say that he has gone to attend to urgent matters in the city, and then he is off.

He does not even know what he means to do, but he storms through Arlathan with a furious wind at his back, and makes his way hurriedly to Andruil’s estate. There is some vague notion in him of simply grabbing Uthvir, really. Of catching the hunter and literally carrying them away; taking them home, and refusing to let them go again. It is impractical and illogical and he is certain some of it could be owed to sleep deprivation; a night of chilled wakefulness following a week of disrupted rest. But it still sees him through all the way to Andruil’s gates, and to demanding after Uthvir from her servants.

“They set out last night,” one of the skinny ones tells him. “Went with a party to go and collect Andruil from her hunt.”

There are a few eyebrows raised at him.

Thenvunin deflates, just a little. Blinks at the unexpected news. Set out…?

“And they have not yet returned?” he asks.

The servant shrugs.

“Hunts go out into the wilds. Uncharted territory, sometimes.”

That is true, he knows. And it is, in a way, better news than he had expected. In some corner of his mind he had half imagined to storm into Andruil’s holdings to find Uthvir lying bloodied and beset upon in the main hall. But of course, that is not reality. 

As far as reprieves go, this still is not much of one; but perhaps he should have expected this. The hunter did say that their lady’s absence and silence was drawing on for too long.

Even so. He waits for the better part of the morning, just to see if they will happen to return, before forcing his footsteps back to the road, and then through the eluvian to the palace again. He goes back to his duties and his mission, and quite forgets to change his clothes until he catches sight of himself in a mirror, and realizes why everyone has been staring.

He looks… stark. The armour he had pulled on this morning is a more streamlined set than what he tends to favour, and his lack of adornments are apparent. His hair is tightly pulled back, but bound only with a single clip. His daughter takes one look at him and then pulls him onto the training field, and he barely manages a protest before he finds himself eagerly hacking away at practice dummies. Swinging his sword until they are broken and his arms are burning, and the cold pit in his stomach has melted into watery despair.

When he is finished, he fully expects her to demand the whole truth out of him.

Instead she simply winds her arms around him, and pulls his exhausted frame towards her, until he all but crumples against her. She is even tinier than her nanae, despite being full grown; but she is just as strong. She holds him up, easily, and Thenvunin feels a trill of shame at having his own child support him so. But when he tries to pull back she tightens her grip, and when he begins to object she shushes him.

“It will be alright, Papa,” she says. “I know you are having a hard time. But it will be alright.”

 _You do not know half of it; and I am glad for that,_ he thinks. But then he closes his arms around her and hugs her, fiercely.

She will be safe.

When he can compose himself, he goes back inside, and dresses properly; and he resumes his attendance of Mythal with renewed determination. If this is what it is, then he will not let it be in vain. And when the unpleasantness is done… he will do what he can. Whatever it may be. 

Uthvir does not return with Andruil, however.

More parties are sent, and searches are done. Gradually larger and larger in scope. The hunter’s absences take on a different tone as they progress from simple retrieval quests, to more involved investigations. At length, other leaders are involved. The search expands. Rumours spread, and the mystery grows, until at last Falon’Din is requested to do the unthinkable, and discover if Andruil even still lives.

And his answer throws everything into chaos.

Andruil is dead.

Incongruously, Thenvunin finds himself thinking of that first night when Uthvir had left. Of the smear of blood on Lavellan’s wrist. Of her tale of killing a sickly hare. But then he shakes the thought away, along with the strange, bizarre suspicion that had risen up in him. Babies do not kill gods. His daughter is tiny; he can recall her toddling into his arms like it was just yesterday. She is barely grown, and still learning, and so very young, however maturely she might behave. Andruil was thousands of years old. One of the strongest beings in all of Elvhenan. She could have broken _Uthvir_  on a whim. Lavellan would stand no chance against her.

It is preposterous to even briefly think otherwise, and Thenvunin views it as a testament to his exhaustion and strain that the bizarre notion even briefly asserts itself.

Even so. Andruil is still dead, and while her family attempts to discover her fate, and mourns her, and fights among themselves over her assets, Uthvir and the other ranking hunters struggle to keep order among her followers. Most of the outlying settlements in her territory put up symbols of mourning, and there is deep unease at the uncertainty of their fate; but they are also able to carry on with their day-to-day business without much change in routine. But from the mid-ranking elves and servants in her palaces there is more fear; more liability of misbehaviour, and attempting to flee or shirk the current social order, defy those who outrank them and behave inexplicably.

And there are petitions, of course. Elves with family in the service of other leaders are immediately involved in tangled efforts to redistribute themselves, to escape the sudden uncertainty of their fate by being bound in service to another leader. Disputes erupt among the leaders themselves, as the question of the proper response is dragged up and passed around. Thenvunin attends his lady, who is stricken with grief.

He is very sorry that she must endure the pain of losing her child. But there is also a part of him, colder than the rest, that is… less sympathetic than an attendant perhaps should be. _I am glad your daughter died before she could hurt mine,_ it goes. _I am not sorry she is gone._ This part of him is dangerous, for it is the part of him that hesitates to wear colours of mourning, and to speak of the sorrow of Andruil’s loss. It is the part of him that wants to denounce her when others speak of her greatness, and he is afraid that at any given moment, it might slip through past all his better judgement, somehow. 

But it cannot. Because his hunters are still wearing the dead leader’s marks, and though Mythal does not bring him for many council discussions, there is much chatter on the directions which events seem to be moving in.

And it does not look good.

One evening, a month after the chaos began, Mythal calls him aside.

His lady is pale and sorrowful, the air around her quiet with the weight of her loss. There are times, too, when Thenvunin cannot imagine how much it must hurt for her to lose her child, and this is one of them. He does not have to feign his sympathy for her, today. Whatever he had thought of Andruil. She is gone, and Mythal’s grief is real.

“Most of Andruil’s lower ranking servants will be going into the service of Sylaise,” she tells him. “She has space enough for them, and will see to them with care. Exceptions are being made for those with strong ties elsewhere. Your Lavellan has all but grown up in my halls. She will be joining you in my service.”

Thenvunin bows, gratefully.

“I would that it were under kinder circumstances, my lady,” he says, and finds he means it. Though he thinks, perhaps, that he wishes Andruil had been a more compassionate soul more than anything else.

Mythal nods in acknowledgement.

Thenvunin pauses.

“If I may ask, what of the higher ranking hunters?” he wonders.

His lady looks out towards her windows.

“They will be going to serve Falon’Din,” she admits. “My eldest has experience with those gifted in the arts of violence, and a need for more varied combatants among his ranks. He has few servants with any talent for martial combat. The arrangement is a reasonable one, for strengthening Elvhenan.”

Thenvunin stills.

Falon’Din?

No.

If there is a leader who is worse than Andruil, it is that one. His heart forgets how to beat for a moment, and he imagines what the man might do with his fresh gaggle of hunters. 

There is a chance, he supposes, that Falon’Din will simply add them to his ranks and ignore them. But what if one of them catches his interest? The man has a reputation. Andruil had done terrible things, and her reputation was only for excessive lustfulness. Falon’Din is _known_ to enjoy causing humiliation, degradation, and torture. How much worse might he be, to any pretty creature who stole his eye?

His mind reels, and then words are leaving him almost of their own volition.

“Are similar exceptions being made for elves in that rank, in the case of strong ties elsewhere?” he wonders.

Mythal glances back at him, and nods in confirmation.

“Yes. Though a tie through a tie is not much of a connection, and my son cleaves tightly to what it is his by right. Your daughter’s attachment to her other parent will not be enough to secure them a place in my ranks,” she admits; not unkindly.

Thenvunin has to bury a spark of anger.

How could his lady raise such things as Andruil and Falon’Din?

But now is absolutely not the time for insolence. He kills the thought before it has a chance to blurt out and betray him, and ducks his head.

“Forgive me, my lady. In light of the circumstances, it would have been exceptionally unbefitting to mention any possibility of a celebration. Uthvir and I were planning to announce our intention to be formally wed. We had though to wait until sometime after Lavellan’s vallaslin ceremony, so as not to detract from the importance of the moment; and then matters, of course, turned unexpectedly tragic. But given that, I am certain neither Uthvir nor I would object to a humbler ceremony.”

Mythal regards him steadily for a moment.

“Oh, Thenvunin,” she says, at length, before looking away again. “You mean to tell me that you had intended to marry Uthvir all along?”

Thenvunin straightens a little.

“No. Not all along,” he admits. “At first I found them intolerable. Some days I still do. They are stubborn, indecorous, frequently inappropriate, vicious, and their tongue is as sharp as their teeth. But the proximity and cooperation of raising our child has brought their virtues more sharply into perspective as well. They are also thoughtful, and generous, and brave. I would not be without them, if at all possible. They are my heart.”

The words leave him, and he realizes at once that they are true. That he would rather be bonded to Uthvir than see them go to Falon’Din. That he would, perhaps, rather be bonded to Uthvir than see them go even to less disastrous fates.

Mythal lets out a breath.

“You have four months before Falon’Din will be collecting his servants,” she says.

Four months. For a marriage. Part of Thenvunin absolutely quails; it will be so rushed, and in the current atmosphere, there will be no chance for the usual celebrations or festive air. In other circumstances, they could marry in the city, and the events and dances and congratulations would last for weeks. He had often imagined that if such a thing were to happen to him, the celebrations would be grand beyond compare.

He bows, and then hurriedly takes his leave.

Well. It is not as though any of this has gone according to plan at all, really. There is no reason for it to start now.

And he still has to broach the subject with Uthvir. That will require some delicacy.

~

“You have to marry me,” Thenvunin says.

Uthvir looks at him like he just grew another head.

It has taken Thenvunin six hours to track them down in Andruil’s holdings, and every minute that passes feels like an axe inching close to the hunter’s neck. _Four months,_ he keeps thinking. There are ceremonies to arrange and witnesses to gather, family members to inform, and what few celebrations can be appropriately arranged for. A venue discreetly beyond the sight of those grieving Andruil to obtain, and so many other aspects of the proceedings to set into motion, and he only has _four months._ And then they will have to get married. And they will _be_ married.

And Uthvir will be safe.

Thenvunin’s family will be safe, and he will be able to keep them that way.

_Four months._

“Thenvunin,” Uthvir says, slowly. “I think you need to sit down.”

The hunter’s hand comes to rest on his shoulder. It has a supremely grounding effect. Thenvunin swallows, and looks them in the eye.

“Do not be ridiculous, I cannot possibly sit down. I have four months to marry you before you are shipped off to Falon’Din like some sort of horrifying funeral gift, and there are far too many things to see to if we are to have anything even approaching a respectable ceremony in time. Though frankly, I cannot see how even that much may be possible. It is going to be a hasty, shameful affair, and it will be incredibly obvious to anyone with a single thought in their head why we are doing it, and I do not care. You have to marry me,” he explains, in a brittle rush that grows in pitch and fervour until the end.

He is, perhaps, a little wild around the edges.

Uthvir’s hand on him tightens a moment.

The hunter’s gaze narrows.

“Falon’Din?” they ask. “That is who is getting us? You are certain?”

“Yes. Only the high-ranking hunters, but obviously, that still will not do at all. Exceptions are being made for elves with strong familial ties elsewhere. Lavellan will be going to Mythal, but additional measures are still required to secure you as well,” he explains. “You have to marry me.”

“Stop saying that,” Uthvir hisses, glancing sharply around. The hall they are in is a bustle of activity. Elves taking inventory, it seems. Gathering up the wealth and treasures of the holdings, verifying records of it all, and organizing it. Thenvunin wonders who commanded them to do this; or if the ranking hunters determined it was something that would have to be done on their own.

He feels a brief trill of irritation, edged just slightly with panic.

“I am a better choice than _Falon’Din,_ really, Uthvir,” he hisses back.

The hunter looks at him, and then away again. Then they grasp him by the arm, and begin leading him down one of the nearby corridors.

“Uthvir! Where are you going?” one of the other higher-ranking hunters calls out, clearly annoyed.

“Wherever I damn well please,” Uthvir snaps back, snarling in a manner fit to send Thenvunin’s thoughts in a wholly inappropriate direction. He tries to stamp down on the reaction, because really, there is too much to do to waste time on things that they will be perfectly capable of doing once they are married and no one is in danger of being taken to the bed of depraved sadists anymore, but the grip on him is firm. Uthvir’s emotions are difficult to read, yet there is an intensity to them that is nevertheless undeniable.

Thenvunin swallows, and is rather glad he is wearing a lot of billowing layers today.

Uthvir drags him to their chambers, which seem to be in as much disarray as the rest of the property. Thenvunin realizes, all at once, that the hunter will likely be permitted to take very little with them, wherever they go. All that they own had been given to them by the grace of Andruil, and is now being given over to other leaders by their concessions and debates among one another. The hunter will likely be permitted their clothing, and some gear, and perhaps a few personal effects that are worth less than their sentimental value, but that will be all.

Well. And they will be able to keep the things that are in Thenvunin’s chambers, at Mythal’s palace and in her Arlathan estate. He will see to that.

Uthvir closes the door behind him, and finally lets him go.

The hunter draws in a long, long breath, before releasing it.

“Lavellan is definitely going to Mythal?” they finally ask.

“Yes,” Thenvunin confirms, again. “She is at the palace now. I came straight here, as soon as I knew I had to start making arrangements for you.” He shifts a bit impatiently. “And I have more arrangements to make besides, and you do as well, so if you could just agree, I can be off and handling things before we run out of time.”

Uthvir catches his gaze, and he halts.

They hold it for a long moment. Long enough that Thenvunin finds some of his sense of urgency giving way to an inexplicable nervousness. He folds his arms, and shifts from one foot to the next. And then he re-folds his arms, more firmly, and lifts his chin a bit.

“Well?” he asks.

Uthvir closes their eyes. They fold their own arms as they move away from him, prickly and armoured and rigid as a board.

“You do not want to marry me,” they say.

Thenvunin scowls.

“Of course I do!” he snaps.

“You will regret it,” Uthvir insists, stopping to glare at the floor in front of them. The light spilling from the windows catches against them, and casts a long shadow behind them. “I will accept your offer, of course. And we will be bound to one another. And one day, you will regret it.”

They look up, and stare him fully in the face again.

“This is only warning I will give you. One chance, to change your mind. Go home to our daughter, without remorse, and without me. I will… survive Falon’Din.”

There is a certain hardness to their gaze, at that; and Thenvunin cannot help but wonder if Falon’Din would survive Uthvir. Which is a preposterous thought. But just as he had thought back to that night, and the blood on Lavellan’s wrist, so too does he think of the late hour when Uthvir had climbed into his bed, and spoken softly to him. When he had confessed his feelings for them, and they had answered with a kiss.

It is only because Andruil’s death has proved so convenient, he thinks. And because his hunters are so very strong, when it comes down to it.

“I know you do not love me,” Thenvunin says, swallowing. “But I am a better choice than Falon’Din. I will not treat you poorly, I swear it. I will not forget that this a bond of equals, or that you are my peer. Or that I love you.”

Uthvir closes their eyes, and bows their head. There is silence for a moment.

“Where did you ever get the idea that I did not love you?” they finally ask.

The question shocks him.

He opens his mouth to answer, because it is obvious, really; it should be obvious. Thenvunin had confessed, and received no answering confession. That there is affection between them is true. But it is a bond born of familiarity for Uthvir’s part. Comfort and routine and the shared partnership of raising Lavellan. Sex, and compromise, and respite from the trauma of Andruil’s actions, most likely.

It should be obvious.

He feels a trill of hope.

With a curse, Uthvir turns, and stalks back towards him. They stop less than a step in front of him. Keen eyes stare into his own, sharp and predatory and brimming with a tempest of emotions.

“If I did not love you, Thenvunin, I would take your offer without hesitation, and marry you. And ten years, a hundred years, a thousand years from now, I would kill you. I would rid myself of the burdensome bond and reap all the benefits of this offer.” The hunter reaches up, and closes a hand around his neck. He shivers. “If I did not love you, I would never have considered turning you down. If I did not love you, I would not care that you will come to regret binding yourself to me.”

Their thumb runs down the pulse of his throat. He swallows, and shivers again, and finds himself at a loss for words again as he loses himself in the hunter’s gaze.

It softens, just a bit.

“If I did not love you, I would not now be vowing to keep you safe. But if you do this, then you will be _mine,_ forever. Even when you hate me. And I will be yours, in earnest, until the end of always. If I did not love you… then you would already be gone with my approval for your plan, and none of that would be true.”

“…Oh,” Thenvunin says.

They regard one another silently for another moment. It feels like the only sound in the room is the heavy thud of his own blood rushing through his veins. Hammering in his skull, as a shadow passes over the light from the window, and then hunter’s grip on him loosens. Their hand moves to rest gently at the back of his neck, instead of clutching at his throat.

“Run away,” Uthvir beseeches of him, in a low and quiet warning.

Thenvunin leans in and kisses them instead.

It is not the most graceful of gestures. But he gets his lips onto theirs, and his hands close around their waist, as he shuts his eyes and, for the hundredth time in recent months, wonders when the world stopped making sense.

Or why he never noticed that it did not sooner.

He holds the kiss for a moment that is long enough to turn awkward, suddenly uncertain of how to move his lips, or use his hands. It feels like he is probably going to have to pull back. He is almost expecting to see the hunter smirking at him, smug and amused and ready with some pithy comment. _Did you really fall for all of that?_ they might ask.

He almost thinks it would be a relief.

But then the mouth against his moves, and Uthvir’s grip on him tightens, and the hunter _growls_ at his lips and closes a hand around a tight fistful of his clothing. Their tongue delves into his mouth, hot and demanding, and Thenvunin forgets how to breathe for a moment as the tables are quite thoroughly turned, and he is pulled straight down to the floor they are standing on. There is a bed scant feet away, but it may as well be miles off, it seems, as Uthvir moves to latch their mouth around his neck instead, and one of their hands clutches at him through his clothes; gripping past the layers, pressing at him until he is straining against the fabric at his crotch.

His hips buck upwards, and he sucks in a sharp breath, his hands scrabbling against the familiar planes and angles of their armour as they sink their teeth into him. He gasps, and then tries to swallow his next breath back down, and then tries to remember why he should because… because everything is different. It ends up stuttering out of him just the same, stilted and rough, and Uthvir kisses the skin they broke and presses down against him as his hips buck again. Uthvir, who is… who… who Thenvunin loves. Who is going to marry him. Who is dire and inappropriate and dear, and is the only other soul in the room, and…

And…

…Oh, damn everything, but Thenvunin wants his hunter _so badly._

His own rounded nails scratch across their armour, and he drags a hand up and pushes it through their hair. The silken strands are soft between his fingers. He presses Uthvir more firmly to his neck, and tilts his hips towards them, and abandons decorum entirely. Some distant part of his mind whispers that this is going to make Uthvir _insufferably_ smug, but he finds he cannot bring himself to mind too much. Better they be smug and smirking and unharmed than distant and in danger and beyond his reach. He would rather contest with a thousand inappropriate comments, burning a trail straight down to his groin, than the cold, bleak helplessness of the past few months.

“ _Uthvir_ ,” he breathes. His own voice sounds strange in his ears. Low and needy and fraught with desire.

The hunter stills, just for an instant.

When they speak, their voice is molten. It slinks right down Thenvunin’s veins, it seems.

“If you do not want me to destroy these clothes, I suggest you get rid of them immediately,” the hunter says.

Thenvunin does not have a spare outfit here.

Even so, he finds himself biting back the wholly unreasonable and mortifying urge to tell Uthvir to have at it. With a frustrated curse he moves further away from them, and starts unhooking fastenings and shrugging off layers of fabric. The hunter is no help at all, as they only move behind him when he sits up, and brush his hair aside, and start sucking bruises into the back of his neck.

Thenvunin leans into it and curses and then moves away again, getting to his feet to finish undressing, until he at last finds himself standing in front of Uthvir – who is watching him from the floor – panting and naked and aroused in the middle of the room. He sucks in a long breath through his nose, and then huffs it out, suddenly at something of a loss again.

How exactly did he reach this point? And where, precisely, has his dignity gone?

 _You did away with it that night you saw their back,_  a little voice whispers.

Uthvir stares at him with half-lidded eyes.

It makes draw in a nervous breath, as shame settles in alongside all of his other emotions, and before he knows it, he is speaking again.

“I certainly hope you are enjoying the view, though I had rather thought the aim would be to do something about it. Unless you have changed your mind, in which case, I have several very important matters to attend to. Weddings do not plan themselves, as it happens. I know _you_ are unlikely to spare much concern for the particulars, but that just means I will have to work doubly hard to make certain arrangements are acceptable, and that will be nearly impossible as it is with just four months to plan and an Elvhenan-wide funeral to attend…”

The hunter stands up.

With a single step, they are close again. They stare up at him. One of their hands curls around his jaw, and Thenvunin trails off, his voice catching in his throat as sharp nails caress the skin below his cheek, and trail down towards his chin. Uthvir grips him there gently, and then pulls him in for a long, low kiss.

He stalls a bit, lost in the gentle drag of their lips.

Hesitantly, he rests his hands on their shoulders.

He has had lovers before, of course. Nothing like the strange progression of trysts into an oddly persistent acquaintanceship and then sudden familial ties that he has shared with Uthvir, but it has not all been one-off interludes and hasty concessions to lust in his life. There was poor Sethtaren, who fell in battle, and Isamalin, who had refused to continue on with Thenvunin after he achieved his current rank. There had been Mirthanadas, and Falona. No courtships; none of them had ever kept with him as long as Uthvir. But not quite mere trysts, either.

And naturally, most of them had prompted him to touch them in some way. They had all been respectable sorts. And they had all expressed some form of exasperation with Thenvunin’s efforts. Clumsy. Hesitant. Awkward. It was always easier to insist that the act itself was the problem. That of course he would not want to touch anyone in such filthy places, of course he hesitated, of course it was awkward; he was not a lustful beast, driven to feast upon the first sight of bared skin. He was _dignified,_ and so he did things with _dignity_ or else he did not do them at all.

But in the upside-down world, as he closes his hands over Uthvir’s shoulders, he knows that was never true. The reality is, he is clumsy at this. He is lustful, and the shape of his lusts betray him as weak.

The hunter pulls back, just a little, nipping at his bottom lip. And then the air around them warms and turns inwards, and Thenvunin forgets awkwardness and shame for a moment. The hunter’s intent is low and inquiring and not the least bit demeaning. It is so easy to answer it that he does it without thinking. He reaches back and floods his response into the question, and finds that the sentiments fit together quite neatly.

Perhaps it will not matter so much, if he is weak. He does not think it would matter if Uthvir was, either.

Perhaps it will be alright.

The hunter leans up and kisses him again.

“You should have run,” they say, almost sorrowfully. But then they are drawing him into their arms, their mouth hot against his collarbones, and he cannot think to question the sentiment before he is lost to the sensations.

~

By the time he finally gets himself back to the palace, it is getting late, and his skin is still tingling. He feels as though he is drifting through a strange dream as he makes his way back. But once the familiar walls of his chambers are around him, he realizes again just how much there is to _do._ He changes, and sweeps back out, and then recalls what he actually needs to do _first_ , and heads back in, and sits at his desk to begin writing.

Messages to the appropriate managers and officials, a letter to his mother, another to his father. He scrawls down explanations and then rethinks them, picks his words carefully to maintain both discretion and a sense of urgency. He drafts letters for tailors and decorators and a message for the manager of Mythal’s winter estate, which he suspects would be the most appropriate venue. A city wedding would be best, of course, but under the circumstances, it would be callous to host such a celebration there. And he does not care for the likelihood of Elgar’nan or Sylaise or anyone else taking offence at the festivities.

He is still writing when Lavellan comes home. He hears her footsteps in the hall, and blinks up from his task just as she comes in, and drops a kiss to his cheek.

“Evening, Papa,” she greets. “What are you up to?”

Thenvunin hesitates.

How to explain?

He catches her eye, and she raises a brow and then turns her attention to the papers on his desk. Hastily, he covers them. He may be uncertain of how to broach this subject with her at the moment – he is going to blame that on some lingering mental fog from… from things he is not going to think about with his daughter in the room – but he is coherent enough to know that he does not want her to find out about her parents’ impending marriage from a letter to a clothier.

“We should talk,” he decides, standing up.

Lavellan blinks, but does not object as he leads her out to the garden sitting area, with its glowing lanterns and the soft sounds of his birds settling in for the night.

For a moment they simply sit. Thenvunin opens his mouth, and closes it again. He shifts in place a bit, and then clears his throat.

“I love Uthvir,” he says.

The words come out easily. Almost as if he has said them to her before. And Lavellan only nods, in confirmation, as if he is reiterating a known fact, rather than establishing a new one. She does not blink, or startle, or look remotely taken aback. She just nods, and waits; as if seeing what he means to do with this point.

After a few more moments of silence, in which Thenvunin finds himself again at a loss, she reaches over and pats his hand.

“I know you do, Papa,” she says.

“You are not the least bit surprised?” he wonders.

She _does_ blink at that.

“Should I be?” she asks.

Perhaps not, he thinks. He remembers lying in bed with Uthvir, and looking at the hunter, and realizing that what he felt for them was no sudden rush of new emotion. It was the accumulation of something that had been building up for years and years. And his daughter is perceptive. She notices subtle things. It would, he rather wryly thinks, be fitting of her to figure it out before he himself did.

After a moment, he clears his throat, and shakes his head a bit.

“Yes. Well, I suppose not,” he says. “In light of the feelings involved… and considering the recent tragedy, your nanae and I have decided to get married.”

Lavellan gapes at him.

Yes, that is rather more of what he had been expecting of her.

But then she just smiles, and laughs, and reaches out to hug him.

“Really?” she asks. “You are getting married? Oh, Papa. That is wonderful. You two are so brilliant together.”

Thenvunin hugs her back, and lets out a long breath. She is horribly biased, of course. The best thing they ever did together was raise her. It has skewed her perspective; but he will hardly be telling her as much. At least someone can be unabashedly happy for all of this. And with as little as she generally thinks of pretence and ceremony, Thenvunin does not suppose his daughter will be bothered by the hasty proceedings, either.

“Thank you, little heart. It does mean that we will be very busy for the next while, though,” he explains, as she pulls back. “Uthvir still has to deal with the hunters and I have only four months to plan this entire affair. Ordinarily I would not dream of doing something so time-consuming so soon after your ceremony, but things have rather gotten out of hand.”

Lavellan frowns a bit, and settles back into her chair.

“Four months?” she asks. “I thought wedding ceremonies could take years.”

“Well,” Thenvunin hedges a bit, and shrugs. “The servants of Andruil are being given over to other evanuris, to see to their well-being. Mythal wants to take you on, of course, and I would like Uthvir to come and stay with us. It will be nice to have us all undivided in our loyalties. But it is easiest to manage if we are formally bonded by then.”

His daughter frowns, just a bit.

“Papa,” she says. “Please, please tell me you and Uthvir are not getting married just so I can have both parents with me. I am fully grown now, and I think I can handle having the two of you still in separate corners.”

Thenvunin tuts, and reaches over to brush her cheek.

“Do not be silly, of course we are not marrying for that,” he says. “There is very little I would not do for you, but an eternal bond is not to be taken lightly, either. This has only affected the timing, my dear, not the sentiments at play. As it happens… I would like to keep the _both_ of you close.”

Lavellan scrutinizes him for a moment; and then she nods in acceptance.

“That does make it easier to watch over people,” she says. Thenvunin is given to the distinct impression that she means more that _she_ will be watching over _them_ , though. He wonders if they did something amiss with her, at times. Not that her protectiveness is a flaw – far from it – but the ferocity with which it crops up can be concerning. So far as Thenvunin knows, his child has never really lost anything or anyone in her life.

But maybe it is just written into her on some very basic level. Something that came into her during those first moments of existence, when she was abandoned in that awful forest.

There are times when Thenvunin thinks of that, of his tiny baby lying all alone in a wild and savage place, and he wants to go and find whoever was responsible, and wring their neck. And then give them to Uthvir, because he is certain that whatever he might think of doing, Uthvir will be a thousand times more violently creative about it.

And there are times when he cannot help but imagine what might have become of her if she had never been found, and he goes cold, and often needs to hold her for a while. That had been much easier to manage back when she was small enough to pick up.

Thenvunin shakes off that particular train of thought, with only some lingering wistfulness, and draws himself to reality again.

“I will help,” Lavellan decides. “These things are important to you. You should have the nicest wedding possible.”

He smiles.

“Thank you, little heart.”

~

The months that follow are a flurry of tensions of a different kind, then, as Thenvunin settles into the work that needs to be done. His mother writes back and is ecstatic, it seems, that he’s finally ‘come around’ to ‘that aesthetically coherent hunter of his’, though she is not thrilled over the matter of the rushed festivities. He consoles her with the notion that, perhaps in a few decades, it will be appropriate for them to arrange something a bit more traditional.

His father writes back and informs him that he cannot possibly make a trip of that magnitude on such short notice, and implies that this whole affair seems questionable and inappropriate besides. His half-sister sends a small floral arrangement and a short, congratulatory note.

Mythal grants him leave to use the winter estate for his wedding, and acknowledges his courtesy and discretion by way of also extending him leave from his duties for a full year, to enjoy the company and attention of his new spouse. Even so, it is a challenge to find elves who are willing to attend the ceremonies of a wedding rather than the elaborate funeral arrangements and investigations that are ongoing in the wake of Andruil’s passing. There is far more opportunity to seize new power and influence in those proceedings than in attending a remote and hasty ceremony.

And, perhaps unsurprisingly, Thenvunin is not the only soul to be marrying a high-ranking hunter in a hurry. Or even a lower-ranking one. Those elves with ties or bonds among Andruil’s people are scrambling to spare them from all manner of ignoble fate. 

With the hunters themselves in disarray, there are few resources and favours to call upon, and slowly it becomes apparent that they will have less than thirty elves in attendance, and with a number that small there will be no cause for many of the more elaborate celebrations, nor, even if there were, a means of providing them.

Thenvunin tries not to become distraught. But it is his _wedding,_ and that means something; and when his usual tailor writes him to let him know that she has had to cancel his order due to the overwhelming call for mourning clothing in the city, and to help with the matter of Sylaise’s elaborate funeral procession, he cannot help but feel utterly defeated.

Lavellan finds him, of course, slumped at his desk, doing a bad job of biting back tears. Uthvir is still attempting to keep total anarchy from consuming Andruil’s forces. A subset of hunters are refusing to believe that their lady has passed on, and have been accusing Falon’Din of deception for the sake of bolstering his ranks. The subsequent disturbances have been resulting in outcries, and several of Falon’Din’s people have taken an outpost in the huntress’s old territory to ‘deal with claims of heresy and slander’, and the whole thing is dangerous and worrying and Uthvir is stuck trying to sort it out.

Lavellan looks at him, and then at the message from his tailor, and makes a sympathetic sound.

“I am alright,” Thenvunin says.

“Papa,” she replies, gently.

He manages a smile.

“You and Uthvir are always saying how silly such fripperies are. I suppose it is only fitting that we have… sparse proceedings.”

“Absolutely not,” Lavellan tells him, so firmly that he has to blink. “You are going to have a lovely wedding, even if I have to put ribbons in my hair and make sad doe eyes at half the city of Arlathan. Give me a list of what you need.”

“Lavellan…” he protests. But she has that stubborn look on her face, as she folds her arms and looks at him.

“Would you ever let me have a sparse wedding with a few dozen guests in an off-season estate, with few festivities to speak of and not even some pretty new clothes to wear for it?” Lavellan asks him.

He goes faint just at the thought.

“Absolutely not!” he snaps. “You are far too young to be considering marriages of any sort, but even if you were not, I see no reason why you should have to endure any sort of circumstances like this. If you ever get married it shall be in resplendent beauty fit for all of Elvhenan to witness.”

Lavellan smiles a little ruefully at him.

“You see?” she says. “And I do not even care half so much about such things as you do. I will do everything I can to make certain you are not sad on your wedding day.”

Thenvunin’s throat goes a bit thick.

“…I suppose you do seem to get on well with tailors,” he concedes.

Lavellan raps her knuckles against his desk.

“Give me a list,” she repeats. “I might as well use the lingering magic of my youth and vulnerability while I still can. And then go see Uthvir, please. You two are always much tenser when you do not make time to spend with one another.”

“I am certain I do not know what you mean. Besides which, your nanae is quite possibly the most stress inducing person I know,” Thenvunin says, though the sentiment rings hollow, and his daughter only rolls her eyes and pointedly moves a piece of parchment in front of him.

In the end, though, he has far too much to do to see Uthvir for any great length of time. They do manage to communicate with one another, and the hunter actually stays with them for a week or so, but there is simply too much to be done and too many matters piling up atop one another. In addition to planning a wedding, Thenvunin still has duties to attend to for Mythal. With his lady’s grief holding strong, those are often numerous.

Lavellan does prove a great asset in acquiring goods for the ceremony, at least. She charms the palace tailors with her usual enthusiasm, despite their workload, and takes full advantage of the tutors who are fondest of her to go through unusual channels, and more than a few times, Thenvunin suspects, she marches off to one Andruil’s holdings and gets even the scattered and uncertain hunters to help.

Slowly but surely, things come together. Uthvir alternates between being their usual self and being somewhat… quieter than is typical of them, but Thenvunin supposes the same could be said of him, as well. Three months in, Thenvunin packs up a cartload of supplies from the city, and another of luggage from the palace, and heads with his daughter and a few servants for the winter estate.

It is, of course, a beautiful place. Especially so in the season it is meant for, when the snowy expanse of the forest behind it paints a picture out of the sleek lines and delicately patterned walls around the grounds. But even in summer, it is fair sight to behold. Thenvunin sighs a bit over the thought of a winter wedding, with snowflakes and ice sculptures, and crystal balloons drifting through the air. Playful spirits laughing on the breeze. But then he shakes the thought away.

They will do well enough.

Lavellan takes over a large part of the direction of things, helping to organize, and Thenvunin is surprised at how particular she is. She snatches up the rough designs he approved for the layout of the ceremony chamber and the reception halls, and is more concerned about the details than he can ever recall her caring to be before. He wonders if she has not taken after him more than he had supposed, as she insists upon carrying in the glass table ornaments herself after a servant drops one, and all but kidnaps the estate manager to go over the grounds.

“Your mother is terrifying,” one of the winter estate servants tells him, staring wide-eyed at Lavellan.

“That is my daughter. My mother has not arrived yet,” Thenvunin corrects.

The man, if anything, looks even more alarmed.

And in fairness, when Thenvunin’s mother _does_ arrive, she is immediately many times worse than Lavellan; who, at the very least, does not often yell at people for their mistakes, nor consider floggings an appropriate punishment for transgressions. Indeed, by the end of the first week, Lavellan is by far the servants’ favourite person to deal with; and Thenvunin, too, finds himself endeavouring to reduce his mother’s intensity. Excessive discipline distresses his daughter, after all.

A week before the ceremony is set to commence, he gets a message from Uthvir, explaining that there are still matters yet for them to attend to, and that they may be delayed. The hunter assures him they will arrive in time for the ceremony. But Thenvunin nevertheless suffers visions of them coming to late. Nightmares of a clock chiming down, and Falon’Din swooping in and waving a hand. And Uthvir vanishing, right before Thenvunin’s eyes, as his fingers stretch through the empty air where they had stood.

Three days before the wedding, he is a frightful mess of nerves and tension, and his mother is starting to get downright thunderous, and Lavellan is calm and still and then disappears for half a day to go riding, before she comes back and assures him that everything will be fine. And makes him tea.

Thenvunin, for some reason, has the inexplicable thought that Falon’Din might turn up dead.

Which makes no sense and is, perhaps, only the most inappropriate sort of wishful thinking, and is an absurdity that flies from his head when evening falls and Uthvir at last arrives.

The hunter comes with a cart burdened with gifts. They hug Lavellan, and permit Thenvunin’s mother to scold them, and when they approach Thenvunin, they take his hand and bow over it in a graceful, formal gesture that might make Thenvunin’s mouth water. Just a bit. Then they turn his hand over and kiss the point of his pulse, and look up at him with a wink and a smirk.

“Thenvunin,” they greet, quietly.

It takes him a moment to think of a suitable response. Lavellan starts ushering his mother out of the entryway in the interim.

“But I wish to ask about the gifts,” his mother protests.

“Later, Grandmother,” Lavellan advises. “Give them a minute. And maybe lock the door behind us.”

“Ah. I see.”

Thenvunin’s hand is still in Uthvir’s grasp, as they are left alone in the entryway together. He feels unaccountably nervous. Though perhaps it is not unaccountable at all, considering they are a few days away from marriage. And yet, it is, too, because Uthvir looks the same as ever. They still have Andruil’s markings on their face. Thenvunin tries to imagine Mythal’s in the place of them, and cannot wrap his head around the image. They are still sharp and armoured, with those teeth and claws and hard edges of theirs. But their gaze is soft, and their hand is warm, and Thenvunin has missed them.

He thinks he could handle missing them, though, time and again in his life, so long as there was always a reunion to look forward to.

“I am glad you came,” Thenvunin says.

Uthvir’s gaze searches his face for a moment. Whatever they are looking for, he supposes they find it; because after a moment, they grin.

“Did you doubt it?” they wonder. “Did you think I might run for the hills?”

“I think I was more worried that Falon’Din’s people might have ‘detained’ you,” Thenvunin admits, and only quite realizes the fear as he voices it.

Uthvir’s smirk widens and turns wicked.

“They certainly tried to,” the hunter informs him. Then they lean in, and Thenvunin can see it on them; the hungry excitement of a chase well won, and the pulsing adrenaline left behind. He shivers a bit, and licks his lips, opening his mouth to speak only to find the hunter’s swiftly upon it. Hungrily kissing him. His words turn into an unintelligible sound of surprise before he is released just as quickly again; lips tingling, and hands caught halfway up in empty air.

Uthvir is, somehow, about a foot away again. They catch his eye, and wink.

“It is tradition to refrain from overt acts of intimacy for at least a few weeks before the wedding, Thenvunin,” they say.

Well.

Well… dammit.

That _is_ true.

“Insufferable creature,” he mutters, without much heat, as he folds his arms and firmly tells certain parts of his body to _behave._ He is absolutely not going to be caught out being the insatiable, irresponsible one who cannot wait until after the ceremony.

No.

… _No._

He clears his throat.

“We had best get you settled in, then,” he decides. “You will need to rest as much as you can.”

Uthvir raises an eyebrow.

“Planning to run me ragged at the soonest available opportunity?” the hunter asks.

“Yes,” Thenvunin admits.

He colours tremendously, and feels a rush of mortification as his mouth snaps shut, and his shoulders straighten, and his chin goes up. Uthvir looks delighted. Because of course they do. Whatever else may true, they are still utterly incorrigible.

Clearing his throat again, Thenvunin turns, and insistently leads them towards their chambers. And if he dresses somewhat more provocatively than usual, it is… possible he is testing the hunter’s restraint. And possible, too, that he is a bit disappointed when said restraint holds out, and he finds himself in bed alone at the end of the evening.

And then, of course, the last minute preparations are at hand, and there is far too much to be done to waste time being even just the tiniest bit sexually frustrated. Not that certain parts of him seem to care, as suddenly Uthvir has gone from being entirely absent to being absolutely everywhere. And it strikes Thenvunin, somehow, as he is hanging lanterns in one of the gardens, that the hunter’s tendency to wear armour even during moments of intimacy means that Thenvunin can recall spending himself on most of the available surface of nearly all of Uthvir’s outfits.

…That does absolutely nothing to help his frustration.

As if they are reading his thoughts, Uthvir turns, and catches his eye, and winks.

Damnable hunter.

~

Thenvunin’s wedding attire is… acceptable.

That it qualifies for that much, he owes mostly to his daughter’s persistence, and his mother sweeping in at the last minute and tuttering over the end result, modifying it in the last few days before the wedding until it came much closer to her exacting standards. And, of course, to Thenvunin’s own.

It is not his ideal. He can admit that. Oh, it is an exceptionally fine outfit, but it is not thread spun from starlight, or gems cut from the rarest of veins, or embroidery woven from crystal shards and embers. His jewellery is elegant, the fabrics some of the nicest he has ever worn, but it is not really what he thinks of as _wedding_ attire.

Even so. He spends the morning bathing, soaking his skin in oils and treated waters until it is softer than silk, and brushing out the long strands of his hair. Some of the estate’s servants help press it as flat and straight as can be, and then Lavellan comes and spends a few hours helping to thread diamonds into it. He settles a white gold hair piece over top, when that is done. He dresses in the pale layers of his outfit, with its skirt that falls from him like silvery water, and its long, billowing sleeves. Adorns it all with white-gold jewellery, and pearls, and yet more diamonds, until he is flowing and glittering and nearly as bright as a star.

He stares at his reflection, a moment. Every possible imperfection seems like it screams out at him. Lines that fall in ways they ought not, shadows that create any awkward shapes, a stray hair in his eyebrows; a few strands that wisp away from the sides of his ears. He fusses and fixes and feels a clenching, gnawing sense of dissatisfaction settle into him. It is not enough. He is not good enough. There is no time to manage anything else, and – and he is rushing into this, he knows, but what else can he do? He should be unambiguously happy to be married, and yet, it is all so complicated.

What if Uthvir does not love him?

What if they change their mind in a year? A dozen years? A hundred?

The hunter is still quite young, all things considered. And an eternity with Thenvunin is likely better than an eternity serving Falon’Din – or decidedly _less_ than an eternity serving Falon’Din – but that is far away from the ideals of bonding, even so.

Even so.

Well.

If Uthvir does not love him, then so what? Thenvunin loves them. And it is not as though there is a limit to how many people one can marry in their life. They can have another ceremony. Perhaps someday, they can meet others, and have yet more; independently, or together. Or perhaps this will be it for him. The two of them will be bound forever, but Lavellan has already seen to that, in many ways.

Thenvunin sucks in a breath, and lets it out again.

By the time his mother comes and fetches him for the ceremony, he is only slightly less than terrified.

His mother, of course, is dressed beautifully as well, though in more neutral cuts and with less adornment than would ever be expected, under normal circumstances. That had been her own idea, though. Since Thenvunin could not wear woven starlight, she insisted, he would still at least look as magnificent as the moon by way of comparison.

The hall, though, is as lavish as it could be made. The wide room is filled with lanterns, the ceiling glittering and shifting like golden sand, and the large doors on both sides of the chamber are thrown open to the gardens. Outside, fountains run with light, and Thenvunin’s songbirds swoop through the trees. There is music, and beauty, and ceremony aplenty. His mother escorts him past the throng, to the dais in the middle of the room.

Uthvir and Lavellan, of course, approach from the opposite side.

Thenvunin nearly trips over himself.

For an awkward, disarming moment, as he sees Uthvir across from the dais, he is horribly confused. There is Lavellan, he thinks, in a dress not too unlike his mother’s, looking uncommonly nice. And there is a stranger beside her. A gorgeous creature, easily outdoing anyone else in the chamber, clad in layers of rippling crimson; a splash of familiar colour, but the shape of it is all wrong. It is soft fabric, rather than hard armour. Cascading down a slender form, rather than clinging tightly to it. He is given to the most incongruous urge to object. Where is Uthvir? Who is this person, and why have they tried to upstage him at his own wedding?

He had, he realizes, fully expected Uthvir to wear armour. Very _nice_ armour, of course; but even so, armour. Spikes and edges and hard, resilient panels. As ever. As always. _That is who I am marrying,_ Thenvunin thinks, of the picture in his head. The red hunter, with their sharp and unyielding visage.

For a long, awkward moment, the person in front of him is too alien for words. There are gems in their hair. There is a golden circlet on their brow. There are rings on their fingers, and they are so very, very beautiful.

But then the moment passes, and Thenvunin sees the spiked tips of Uthvir’s nails. The hunter looks at him, eyes sharp, and teeth sharp, too, when they smile; and it is just Uthvir. The same as they have always been, even if they are dripping in finery for the first time Thenvunin has ever seen them.

And there is more yet, too, just trailing at the edges of them. The slightest trembling of unease. They are uncomfortable like this, Thenvunin thinks. Dressed like this. Standing like this, in front of so many watching eyes. They could have worn their armour and not a soul would have objected, save perhaps Thenvunin’s mother, and even she might have secretly been pleased to just be certain that no one would outshine her son today. But they had dressed as much as they could for the wedding, instead.

Because of tradition? Ceremony? Decorum?

 _Romance,_ a voice inside tells him.

Again, he feels the strangest urge, as they draw up to the dais, to call the ceremonies to a halt. To demand that Uthvir go and change and come back in their armour. He does not, of course. That would be ridiculous. He has wondered on and off for years what Uthvir might look like in flowing fabrics and beautiful gemstones, and now the reality of those wonderings is standing right in front of him, and it is every inch as breathtaking as he had ever suspected it could be.

And yet…

And _yet…_

Through most of the ceremony, he finds himself staring at Uthvir’s eyes, rather than at anything else. Those are the same as ever. It is astonishingly grounding, just to look at them. To know that they are the same eyes he has been looking into all this time, and will keep looking into until time runs out.

“Clasp your hands,” the officiant instructs. Her firm voice breaks the stream of his thoughts. Thenvunin reaches for Uthvir, and Uthvir reaches for him, and their fingers thread together. The rings feel odd. The nails that settle at the backs of his palms do not. It is not necessary for such ceremonies, but after a moment, Thenvunin leans forward, and rests his brow against Uthvir’s, too. The long strands of his hair fall like a curtain between his heart’s face and the gathered witnesses. When the Spirit of Love is summoned, it is an old and large one, radiant and gleaming where it wraps around the both of them. Where it lights up the pathways between them. Suddenly Thenvunin feels like half of himself is pouring out into those hands against his; and half of Uthvir is flooding in. He feels love, and connection. It is fierce. Fierce, and fearful, and sharp and hungry, protective and fragile, and soft in unexpected ways. It is Uthvir’s name upon his lips, and their presence at his side. It is a voice not his own, whispering, quietly in the dark. _I never thought I could feel like this, I thought I was not made for it, I did not expect it but I want it, I want it, it is not safe for me to want this but I do, I want him, I want this love that burns inside of me…_

_I want it to be real._

There are lips on his.

Hands still threaded through his, and a mouth pressing fiercely to his own, as the spirit of Love twists away from them in a shower of radiance and a strong sentiment of satisfaction. Unity.

It is indecorous in the extreme, but he closes his arms around Uthvir, and sinks into their kiss even as he comes fully back into himself. Lavellan laughs and after a moment his mother taps him pointedly on the back, and some of their witnesses sound distinctly amused. Even so, it is a long moment before Thenvunin can bring himself to step away. Step back. He keeps hold of his hunter’s hands as he draws in a ragged breath.

They look a little overwhelmed, too. It is oddly satisfying to see just the faintest hint of colour in their cheeks, and dazedness in their eyes. They tug at him, as if to pull him back, but then catch themselves a moment later. Blinking instead, they swallow, and then lift their joined hands up. Uthvir kisses the backs of his knuckles.

They smile.

 _Oh no,_ Thenvunin thinks, giddy and overwhelmed and perilously near to tears. _I have to make it through eight hours of celebrations, now._


	16. Morning After

Uthvir does not sleep much.

And they do not often sleep in bed with partners, either. Not even if they happen to be in the bed with their partner who is, themselves, sleeping. But there are exceptions to that rule, particularly of late. They suppose, considering all that has happened and the fact that it is the night of their wedding, it should not be too surprising that they fall asleep.

And sleep deeply.

Not right away, of course. Once the celebrations have concluded, Uthvir wastes little time in awaying with their new spouse. Which is still strange to think of. And yet not; as they find there is not much difference in the sentiments that exist between themselves and Thenvunin when all is said and done. The pathways the Spirit of Love had lit up between them ache, a bit. Like a muscle that his been pulled further than it is accustomed to. But the feelings settle, as well, and Uthvir wonders how long they have been growing between them. Inch by traitorous inch.

 _Please,_  Thenvunin’s voice had whispered in their own mind, during the ceremony. _Please. I love them. Let them love me. Let them want me. Let it be enough, please. Can I be enough? Can I keep this, even if I am not perfect?_

The words pull at Uthvir all through the celebrations. _Of course you are enough,_ they think. They look at their splendid husband, so beautiful, so flawed and fragmented and still, _theirs,_ just as he is, and they know they must say it plainly. They must say it often, too, even if it sometimes makes them shudder and trip and falter to think of the words. Not the sentiment. But the words themselves. 

In their memory, that phrase is framed in agony. Wreathed in torment.

_I love you._

Like phantoms they feel the manacles of bracelets on their wrists and ankles. The hand fisted in their hair. That voice, whispering, words that speak of adoration but there is none of that, it is all wrong, it is twisted and painful and…

It is not at all like Thenvunin, whose hand in their hair is welcome. Whose touch is welcome.

They think of this as they close the bedroom door behind them, and the room is filled with expectation. Thenvunin is resplendent in his finery. He is soft and silken; weak and strong; self-possessed and resilient and yet, still fragile. Uthvir does not sink their teeth into him, tonight. They peel the layers of his wedding attire from him with care, because he will want to keep it, they know.  They kiss him, and kiss him again, and then they move back and begin drawing off their own flimsy coverings.

The evening had felt like a trial, in this outfit. Like every eye upon them was a knife poised to sink into some vulnerable part. Even so, they are stilted and somewhat hesitant as they undress. It makes them think of Andruil’s chambers. Of dressing room mirrors and fingers trailing down their spine, and all the things that followed.

Thenvunin moves closer.

He raises a hand, but then seems to stall. His gaze roves over Uthvir’s form. Taking in the whole of what he has only seen in parts before. He does not seem to disapprove, at least; despite the scars. Though there is still uncertainty to him.

Uthvir braces, as an unwelcome voice hisses through their memory.

_Say it. Tell me you love me. You love me, above all others. You are mine, and you love me._

Thenvunin’s hand comes up again, and reaches carefully towards them. There are still diamonds in his hair. There is want in his gaze; but it is a welcome want.

“I love you,” Uthvir says. And it feels like they are spitting in the face of their past when they do. They love him. Not the owner of that voice in their memories. They love _Thenvunin_.

Thenvunin’s fingers curl, stalling, and some illogical and buried part of Uthvir half expects a blow. They do not flinch. But they do tense, until a soft touch brushes over their cheek. Thenvunin caresses them, and then reaches up and begins to pull the jewels from their own hair. He is quiet. The air around them trembles, though, flooded with tenderness that Uthvir is not entirely sure how to respond to.

At length, they rest their own hand on Thenvunin’s shoulder. They trail it up to caress his neck. His skin is so soft. Bathed in oils to make it so; to make it perfect for touching. For Uthvir to touch. An invitation, not an obligation. They lean forward as the last bit of jewellery is pulled away, and get their arms around their husband, and latch their lips onto his.

Skin to skin.

It is… not quite the tempestuous surrender to passions that Thenvunin probably envisioned when Uthvir first arrived, and he promised to run them ragged. There are stops and starts. Thenvunin’s fingers catch over scars, and his lips try to heal marks that cannot be so simply erased. Uthvir cannot take so much touch. They halt and pull back; press forward and over-compensate, and it is, in many ways, a mutual disaster.

But in this air, somehow, failure is much easier to swallow than it ever has been before. And when they at last succeed, and are done, Uthvir presses themselves to Thenvunin’s back. With the covers high around them, they bury their nose into his hair, and fall asleep like that. Heavily asleep, deep in dreams, their own heart beating steadily. With no more looming threats to worry about for the moment.

Safe.

For now.

They wake with their arms empty. Daylight is streaming in through the windows. Their head is heavy. All of them is heavy, in fact. It feels as if they have been on a long hunt, and have only just now been able to lay down their weapons, and give up their prey, and sit in the summer shade of an overgrown field, and rest. Their skin tingles with the echoes of pleasant touches, and there are fingers in their hair.

A spike of concern shoots through them. For a moment they are given to the paralysing suspicion that everything has been a dream. Not even just the past few months, but the last few decades before it, too. Raising a daughter, and falling in love, and forging all the new connections they hold tightly in their mind.

Rounded, gentle fingers, brush careful strokes across their scalp. 

Not Andruil’s touch.

The suspicion fades.

They blink their eyes open to find Thenvunin is sitting up beside them. Propped against the headboard, beautifully dishevelled and serene. There is a look on his face that is soft and a little mesmerized. 

His fingers stall when Uthvir catches his eye, and after a moment, begin to withdraw.

“Keep doing that,” Uthvir sleepily requests.

Thenvunin blinks, and swallows. But then he resumes touching them, just a little shakier than before. After a few more moments of indulgence, Uthvir reaches up, and catches his wrist. They draw his hand down and kiss the point of his pulse. An old-fashioned gesture. Something from well before their own time, very much out of style, but it makes Thenvunin’s aura ripple just a bit. And the pulse they kiss speeds up.

“You were sleeping,” their husband observes.

“And not ravishing you? How remiss of me,” Uthvir mumbles against his skin, amazed at how alertness seems content to evade them. They are so… sleepy. It is uncharacteristic, although not alarming; and they suppose it stands to reason. It probably _has_  been uncommonly long since they actually slept for more than an hour or two.

Thenvunin seems to agree, as he looks distinctly besotted, and slides down on the bed to carefully frame Uthvir’s face with his hands, and kiss them.

He is getting better at that.

“You can rest all you like,” he says, with a slight waver to his voice. “Have your way with me later.”

Uthvir cannot help but smirk, just a bit. Their nails regain some of their points, as they playfully trail them across Thenvunin’s skin, until he is shivering and drawing even closer to them. His gaze goes languid; heated, but not hurriedly so. His forehead tilts against theirs.

“Good morning, love of mine,” he whispers.

“Good morning, husband,” they return.


	17. Dating

“No,” Thenvunin insists, hands on his hips as he looks down at Lavellan. “Absolutely not. Pick someone else.”

Uthvir rolls their eyes, and glances towards Lavellan to see what she will do. She is calm; as is typical of her. Largely unperturbed by Thenvunin’s dramatics, which, Uthvir supposes, is only to be expected when she spent all those formative months strapped to the man’s chest.

“I will not be picking anyone else,” she says. Her tone is very wry, for some reason. “Believe me. However inadvisable you find him, he is… who he is. He is the one for me.”

“He is _not!”_  Thenvunin insists. “He is shiftless, unreliable, impolite… he is far too young, and not nearly skilled enough… and, and he spends most of his time as some vulgar beast!”

“I _have_  met him, Papa. I did not, in fact, line up a list of suitors you would find unacceptable, and then pick the top candidate,” Lavellan says, and now there is a bit of bite to her tone.

“Well have you considered that he might have?” Thenvunin asks.

Uthvir and Lavellan both blink at him.

He backtracks.

“By which I mean, have you considered that he is seducing you so that he can break your heart and thereby injure me? Because he loathes and despises me, and it seems highly suspicious that someone who loathes and despises me would suddenly gain a romantic interest in my own child,” he reasons.

Lavellan shakes her head.

“I… no. No, I did not consider that he was only interested in me as part of some bizarre scheme to get to you. How remiss of me, to forget that absolutely everything is about you.”

Thenvunin balks.

“Ooh,” Uthvir says, admiringly. It earns them a withering glare.

With a sigh, Uthvir moves away from the wall, and pats Lavellan on the shoulder.

“Bring him to visit for an evening,” they decide. “If he can survive your Papa’s dramatics, and does not flee in terror before the end of the night, you can keep him.”

“She _cannot!”_  Thenvunin snaps.

Lavellan turns, though, and drops a kiss onto his cheek.

“I am keeping him anyway; but I would like it better if you all got along,” she asserts. Her mood is high, though, as she walks out of the room. Better than it has been of late; the melancholy that occasionally sweeps over her had taken root in full-force the past few months. After she had met Pride, but before all this business of a courtship.

“What are you doing?!” Thenvunin hisses, once she is gone.

“Well, _now_  I am going and getting my hunting knives. I plan to spend the evening cleaning them, along with a few recent kills,” Uthvir asserts. “If I were you, I would think of something exceptionally dramatic to do. Particularly if you hate this wolf as much as you claim.”

Thenvunin blinks, and glares; he opens his mouth, and closes it again. Then he turns on his heel, and heads towards the door. Doubtless having actually concocted some sort of plan.

Uthvir whistles, and heads for the weapons’ cabinet.


	18. Desire

Desire watches as Thenvunin paces a length of floor, in a very pretty parlour in Mythal’s Arlathan estate. 

It’s the winter festival, and the city is filled with lights and eternal snowflakes, and pretty sculptures make of ice, and a spire has been erected in the city’s center to house the public festivities. Sylaise herself has been seen stoking up the celebratory atmosphere, and all in all, Desire thinks things are set to be a fairly delightful event.

Under normal circumstances, she might have expected Thenvunin to be fussing over outfits and flitting around, complaining about decorations. The last festival she was here for, the high-ranking elf had been battling his fifteen-year-old daughter into wearing a fluffy white dress that made her look like nothing so much as a sparkly snowball.

But that was years ago. Now Thenvunin’s daughter is wearing white fur again, but her papa looks anything but pleased about it. Uthvir lounges next to the fire with the air of someone who is used to this type of chaos, and perfectly content to wait out the storms until something strikes their interest. Desire is inclined to match the sentiment, though she cannot help but find this flurry of anxious over-parenting a little amusing.

Waking-born are a bit odd, sometimes.

“Why are you wearing white fur?” Thenvunin demands.

“It is the winter festival, Papa,” Lavellan replies, arching a brow at him in a manner that is so very ‘Uthvir’ that Desire has to bite back a snicker. “I always wear white, and I often wear fur.”

“It is that – that _menace,”_ Thenvunin insists. “That wolf! You are matching that wolf! Did he ask you to accompany him? I will march right over to his chambers and-”

“Enough,” Lavellan says, sharply. “He did not ask me to the festival. I swear, he never brought it up.”

Thenvunin halts a moment, uncertainly. He draws in a breath, and looks just slightly relieved.

“ _I_ asked _him_ , though,” Lavellan admits.

Her papa bristle like a furious cat.

Desire does laugh, then; clasping her hands together and tipping her head back, delighted by the familial antics, and Lavellan’s unapologetic stance. The young lady crosses her arms and stares down Thenvunin as he blusters and sputters and angrily insists that she retract her invitation, and supposes that this ‘wolf’ must have tricked her into asking him, and then shrilly demands that Uthvir help bring their child in line.

The hunter merely raises their hands in the universal gesture of ‘what do you want me to do?’

“Uthvir!” Thenvunin snaps, and Desire’s a little surprised that he does not stamp his foot, he is bristling so.

“Lavellan. Try and avoid deflowering Pride during the festival; it would upset your papa,” Uthvir drawls.

“That is not what I meant!” Thenvunin hisses.

Uthvir blinks.

“Oh. Alright then. Feel free to deflower him,” the hunter says, with a nod to their daughter.

“ _Absolutely not!_ ”

Thenvunin looks as livid as Desire has ever seen him, and immediately starts going off on corrupting influences and his poor, sweet child who is being _preyed upon_ by _literal wolves_ and why is no one else concerned about this, because apparently this wolf in particular is nothing but trouble and young and spoiled and could never in a thousand years be worthy of Thenvunin’s child.

As he keeps arguing with Uthvir, Desire beckons Lavellan over.

“Tell me about this wolf, darling,” she asks.

Lavellan smiles.

It is a very sweet smile, and Desire sees affection and admiration stir, just slightly, in her aura. And a shot of wistfulness, too; though she does not know where to place that in the mix. Perhaps, though, with her papa still ranting over the inappropriateness of all this, a few obstacles have presented themselves.

“His name is Pride,” Lavellan says, softly. “Papa does not get along with him.”

“Truly? He hides it well,” Desire replies, with a wink.

Lavellan shrugs.

“He will just have to get over it,” she declares. Her arms fold across her chest, and Desire sees stubbornness more than equal to her father’s come into her. This child is fierce, she knows. Perhaps more fierce than either of her parents. Desire sometimes wonders how she came by her ferocity; if it is some inborn trait, or if she somehow absorbed both of her parents’ steel and forged it even further within herself. It has been there for years, however. Ever since Desire first saw her tiny form pulling out the giant rose-shaped bows that her papa had put carefully into her hair.

“You like him that much?” Desire asks.

And there, just briefly threading through the quiet aura that Lavellan carries about her, Desire glimpses something painfully familiar.

“He is the one for me,” Lavellan confirms. “Provided he continues to return my sentiments, of course.”

“Is he pretty?” she wonders.

Lavellan’s smile grows wide, and she raises a hand to it; as if she cannot quite help herself, and half wants to cover the expression before it takes up the whole of her face. There is an ache to her, too, though. That wistfulness.

“He is beautiful,” she confirms. “And clever. And just a little ridiculous.”

“Of course he is,” Desire says.

Glancing over at Thenvunin and Uthvir, she looks back at Lavellan, and reaches up to clasp her arm.

“You go,” she says. “Go on. Get there early. Catch your Pride on the way if you can, and take him with you. I will help distract your parents.” If anyone, she thinks, can handle a creature called _Pride_ with little trouble _,_ it would be the one nurtured by Thenvunin and Uthvir.

Lavellan raises an eyebrow.

“Do not give me any details on how you plan to do that,” she requests.

Desire laughs.

“Certainly not! Your papa would die of mortification.”

With a glance back, Lavellan’s smile goes smaller, and more fond. She turns back towards Desire, and then dips her head and presses a sweet kiss to her cheek. For all her ferocity, this girl softens around the edges far more easily than either of her parents do, too. Maybe it is always like that with Waking-born, Desire thinks. She wonders, if she were to have a child, what parts of her they might take and reshape and improve upon.

“Thank you,” Lavellan says.

Desire nods, and stands up as her young friend heads for the door.

It is not, she supposes, as if ‘distracting’ these two is much of a trial.

Her smile turns sultry as she moves in.


	19. Desire's NSFW Threeway

Desire waits until Lavellan has gone, and with a wave, locks the door behind her.

Uthvir and Thenvunin are still posturing at one another. Lovely birds that they are. She takes a moment to admire them both, still preoccupied with their conversation. Thenvunin is _quite_ lovely, of course. The man’s hair is a cascade of pale tresses, with waves put into it for the evening. He’s managed to cultivate an air of grace and delicate beauty that almost creates a persistent optical illusion. Even when he’s perfectly naked, she knows, there’s a self-awareness to Thenvunin that simultaneously undermines him and also guarantees that he rarely look like anything less than a work of art.

Uthvir, of course, is equally deliberate and self-conscious, but to utterly different ends. In essence, the hunter is prettier than their partner. It takes some careful looking to see, Desire knows; but their features are perfect. Their musculature neither absent nor exaggerated – save by their armour. Their skin is soft, their lashes delicate, their lips ideally shaped for all their smirks and sneers and mocking half-grins. Cracking open that armour, she thinks, would be like cracking open an eggshell, and spilling beautiful golden yolk into her palm.

Thenvunin is a lovely mess. But Uthvir, if she dwells on them for too long, is almost disquietingly compelling.

And she is not even the one who has ultimately managed to drag off the first few pieces of that seemingly-impenetrable armour.

Still. The two of them. They are a _feast_.

Uthvir glances at her, and seems to note Lavellan’s absence first. Thenvunin is not far behind them, though, and whirls about as soon as he realized that he can no longer see his daughter. Funny. Desire never would have pegged him for the nurturing type. But, then again, she hadn’t known about the birds, either. Way back when.

“Lavellan has gone to change,” she says, folding her arms. “She should be a while. Putting together another outfit suitable for a festival takes some time. Luckily, we have that.”

A brief flash of guilt flies through Thenvunin’s expression.

“I should go help her,” he decides.

Desire moves to intercept him before he can head for the door. She blocks him off, and settles a hand against his chest. Sure enough, the touch freezes him. All those conflicting impulses give Thenvunin little fits and starts, she has noticed over the years. A caress is something he both wants and does not think he should want, something he could shrug off in an instant, and yet wishes to sustain; it has him scrambling for reasons to let it happen, or excuses for why he cannot stop it, and even when he is preoccupied with other things, it seems, it can pause him.

Just for a moment.

“Somehow, I do not think she is in a place to take advantage of your fashion advice, Thenvunin,” she purrs. “Fortunately, I can think of a few ways we might pass the time while she is down the hall and sufficiently distracted.”

She trails her hand down towards his stomach.

Uthvir moves, then, coming up behind Thenvunin as he begins to fluster.

“That _hardly_ seems appropriate!” the man snaps. “She could come back at any moment, or she might need something-”

Uthvir’s hands slink around Thenvunin’s hips, and he freezes up again. Desire watches those lovely pointed gauntlets tap against the soft, delicate fabric their target is wearing. Like the claws of a great beast, closing playfully over succulent prey. Oh, she does love the image they paint. The dark red against the muted pastels that Thenvunin has on. The pointed rhythm of each digit where it lands. Not with enough force to injure. But _juuust_ enough to remind the both of them who has all of the sharp edges in this room.

“I locked the door,” she offers, canting her head. Thenvunin’s gaze flits down over her form. She is well dressed herself tonight, even given her lack of comparative station. Folds of soft blue and white fabric, cascading over the ample curvature of her hips and breasts; gently caressing her stomach, before billowing out around her ankles. Just opaque enough to avoid being too unseemly for a public festival.

“She could need something,” Thenvunin protests, a little weakly.

Uthvir chuckles.

“Given her mood, I think she would be more inclined to head down several corridors and ask Tarensa or even Mythal herself if she did, before coming here and asking us,” the hunter points out.

Reaching to her side, Desire opens the small pouch at her belt. There is a gift in it that she had meant to make use of, should the opportunity present itself. Now seems as good a time as any. It should make for a long distraction, at least.

“That reminds me. I have a present for you, my lovely,” she says to Thenvunin. Lifting up her prize, she reveals the decently-sized ring. Too large for fingers, of course. Made of a relatively flexible material, but to suit its intended recipient, it looks like spun gold braided with platinum. A smooth band of purple stone snakes through the middle of the ring. Nothing truly valuable – her resources are limited – but Thenvunin will not likely be wearing it around any high-ranking officials.

Apart from Uthvir, of course; who is more apt to be interested in the effects than the materials. And may not qualify anymore besides.

Thenvunin stills.

The hunter smirks.

“Oh, how considerate of you,” they say. “I was getting rather bored with the one I gave him.”

“Did it do anything interesting?” Desire wonders.

“Only the usual. Why? Does _this_ one do anything ‘interesting’?” Uthvir wonders.

She winks.

“Of course.”

At last Thenvunin reaches his tipping point, as he stares at the cock ring which Desire is still holding up. He makes a sound that is probably a bit more needy than the outraged huff he is likely angling towards, and takes a step back – closer to his hunter, further from her gift. But he does not go the obvious route of moving to either side, or simply pushing Uthvir’s hand away.

“You – you two! I cannot believe you! This is _highly_ inappropriate, the least you could do is restrain your savage lusts until after the festival is done,” he blusters, flushing a bit and still looking at the ring.

Desire takes a step forward, and fully ‘traps’ him between herself and Uthvir.

“Since when has anyone ever done that?” she wonders.

Uthvir’s hold on Thenvunin tightens a bit. They move behind him. She cannot quite see what they do, but it makes Thenvunin jump, and then go rigid.

“Do _not_ tear these clothes! Absolutely not!” he hisses through clenched teeth. “This is part of my festival outfit!”

Uthvir chuckles.

“You have a lot of outfits, Thenvunin. You could always wear one of the ones Lavellan made for you. I am certain that would help cool her temper.”

“How dare you talk about our daughter while you are – no! Those outfits are not – they would – you do not understand the importance of decorum, and – _stop biting me!”_

With a grin, Desire slides her gift between her teeth, and reaches over to start gently untying Thenvunin’s belt. Her good intentions are somewhat thwarted by a tearing sound from behind, though, as the hunter takes their usual, more direct route to things. She can see the appeal. Thenvunin’s outrage is not difficult to inspire. But the way he reddens when the fabric rips, the shrill note his voice takes on, how his muscles clench and the air around him whirls with badly disguised lust, betrays far more of the truth than he usually lets through.

Uthvir pauses in their carnage, and she carefully removes the scraps of fabric and awkward, untorn bits still clinging to Thenvunin. The hunter grasps the back of their lover’s neck, and leans in close.

“Word,” they demand.

“ _Insatiable,”_ Thenvunin counters.

“No, Thenvunin, it needs to be something you do _not_ ordinarily say during sex,” she tuts, as she enjoys unveiling the pristine expanse of his skin. He has a nice cock, she thinks. Already creeping up towards half mast, flush and pretty, not too big or too small. Sensitive thing. She holds off on touching, though, until Uthvir has finally coaxed a word out of Thenvunin. The usual. ‘Starling’. Pretty bird and his pretty loves; even his choice here is half a betrayal of some deeper meaning.

She wonders if he knows how easy it is to let things slip unbidden past the walls, when they have built up so much that they can barely be contained.

Cages, she thinks. They are all caged and all desperately trying to break out of them at once. Break each other out. Steal a little taste of freedom.

But that is a heavy thought for these proceedings.

Uthvir holds Thenvunin, and catches her eye. They raise a brow, and with a grin, she drops to her knees. Thenvunin goes rigid as a board, the air around him rippling as he suppresses his reaction even before she has touched him. She draws a careful finger up his length, mindful of that hair trigger; though, this is part of what her gift will help with, too. She looks up at him, and winks, and then tastes him with her tongue. Smooth and silky. Uthvir’s pointed fingertips trail up Thenvunin’s chest as she carefully coaxes him up, and then stretches the ring open.

Gently, she slides it over the head of his erection, and then works it down his shaft. She turns it a bit, playfully, as she settles it at the base of him. And then she whispers, and the central band gleams, and Thenvunin bites back on a gasp. Literally. It edges out and then he catches his bottom lip between his teeth, eyes squeezing shut as he trembles for a moment.

“What did you do?” Uthvir asks her, quiet but intent.

“Heightened sensations,” she admits.

“Everywhere?”

“You got it,” she confirms, glancing up. “Are you doing alright, lovely?”

Thenvunin does not answer right away. His eyes are still closed and his expression is tight. She is a little surprised when Uthvir retracts their touch from him. The hunter only pulls off their gauntlets, though, and then caresses their lover with bare hands. Moving in gentle, consistent strokes, that are clearly meant to have a grounding effect.

“Thenvunin,” they say. Their tone is rare. Desire marvels for a moment. _This is new,_ she thinks. Even a few years ago, she does not think she would have heard that tone come from them. Perhaps Andruil’s death has changed more thing than she might have guessed.

Fate be willing, Falon’Din goes next. And she is there to see him fall.

“I have you,” Uthvir whispers.

Thenvunin leans back, just so, and then lets out a long breath.

“Beasts,” he murmurs.

Uthvir smirks, and presses a kiss to his shoulder.

“Ah, but you are a tamer of beasts, are you not?” they say, pressing close to him again, and offering Desire another wink.

Safe to go.

“Certainly he is,” she agrees, grinning herself. “For who could resist so lovely an elf? Surely it would take more civility than you or I are capable of.”

“Just so,” Uthvir agrees.

They hold Thenvunin, then, as she slides her lips around him. There is no sound this time, sadly. The man is expecting it enough to sufficiently swallow it down. She wonders if he ever swallows Uthvir down, and the thought makes a low heat sink through her, even as she teases him with her tongue.

She takes her time at it, until he is leaking and throbbing, flush and rigid as can be. Such a pretty picture, still tangled in the hunters arms, and biting his own lip.

Uthvir arches a brow.

“His endurance has not improved _that_ much,” the hunter says, even as they trail a hand down to investigate matters for themselves. They brush against Thenvunin’s cock and a small little breath skitters out past the man’s best efforts. Uthvir rewards him with a nip.

“Oh, he cannot finish until I turn it off,” Desire admits. “Cannot go down again, either. We have him trapped.”

The hunter closes a hand around Thenvunin, and smirks as he twists in their arms, opening his mouth to curse and producing an incomprehensible sound partway through instead. Hmm. Verbalizing will be tricky for him. She shares a glance with Uthvir, and knows they’re thinking the same. They will have to keep a close eye.

Still, for now Thenvunin’s aura is rippling with badly-disguised _want_ more than anything. Uthvir plays with him a bit, and she straightens, and takes a step back. Enjoys the show for a moment. Such a picture, as the hunter strokes and nips, and Thenvunin struggles for ‘composure’. Then Desire slips out of her dress. It pools onto the floor at her feet. Belt gone, then a few clasps; a tug and she is naked.

Uthvir gets a glint in their eye. The beginnings of a wicked idea, she can tell. The hunter draws Thenvunin over to one of the room’s chairs, and pushes him into it. They cup his cheek and deliver a long, hungry kiss – and then they leave him sitting there, flushed and wanting, and come to her. She adores that predatory walk of theirs. They stop in front of her, and kiss her, too. Sharp teeth leave her lips tingling. They lean towards her ear.

“The table in front of him,” they suggest, nodding to a low little piece. Not big enough to lie upon, but sufficient for leaning on. She laughs in agreement. It makes their eyes gleam as they pull her forward, and she obligingly bends over the table; gripping it carefully as they move to lick her open.

Their tongue is molten hot, and _long._ Such a talented shapeshifter. They drag it over her and into her, sharp nails just barely digging into the skin of her hips. Her breasts sway above the table, and she makes her approval well known as their delving licks stir up the fire in her. She stares at Thenvunin through half-lidded eyes. He, in turn, sits in his chair. Gripping the armrests, and drawing in progressively more ragged breaths. As Uthvir brushes an electric caress inside of her, she moans, and Thenvunin’s hips twist. Her eyes lock onto his flushed cock, still so beautifully dressed, and she pointedly licks her lips.

He twists again; delightful in his state.

Uthvir feeds the fire up in her, and then stops. Their tongue recedes. Her disappointed cry abates only when she hears the sounds of armour and cloth shifting, and realizes they are freeing yet more of themselves from their confines. Smooth, metal-clad thighs still press up against the backs of hers, though, as they line up, and then plunge into her.

Their nails dig in enough to add a spark of pain to the pleasure. Thenvunin pants as Uthvir pulls back, and then thrusts in again. A heady stretch that sets her aflame. She leans down, angling into them more, taking them deeper, and the flushed skin of her breasts presses against the cool surface of the table. Sensitive nipples are teased by the engraved border on the tabletop as the hunter sets up a steady pace. Just enough to make her sway with it; to lift the edge of her breasts up from the surface before they are drawn back down. She curls a leg and clenches her fingers against the wood. The contrasts are delightful; the cool table, the building heat between her legs. The smooth planes of the wood, and the textured carvings changing the pattern of sensations.

And then the hunter angles just so and thrusts perfectly, and she laughs in triumph as she comes, spinning up towards blinding stars. Shuddering and nearly collapsing straight downwards as she does; though she catches herself in time. She grins as Uthvir gives her a few more thrusts, and then comes, too. Their clutch on her deepens, just a bit, and they draw in a breath. Spilling inside her. Then they brush their touch down her sides, and withdraw.

Thenvunin looks fit to burst.

“Poor lovely,” Desire pants, as she glances at Uthvir; and the pretty, glistening part of themselves they have set free. Thenvunin seems quite take with it, too.

“Shall you have pity on him?” Uthvir asks.

She draws in a few more ragged breaths, and yet shivers in anticipation.

“Eventually,” she agrees. “I think I shall play with him awhile. But then I want to see you fuck him. I want to see you tie him up, helpless, and take him until he’s begging. And _then_ I will let him go.”

That should buy some time.

Uthvir tilts their head, and there is a shock of arousal from Thenvunin.

“If you insist,” the hunter obliges, with a careless wave.

Grinning, she makes her way over to Thenvunin in his chair.

“Oh, poor thing. Look at you. Such a state you are in,” she says, taking his face between her hands. “I bet that cool chair has gone all fiery hot under you, has it not? Come on. To the bed, then.” She draws him up, and pulls him towards the four-poster on the far side of the room. He is quiet until she pushes him down towards the sheets, and then he lets out a hiss, legs twisting and hips twitching.

“You are far more delicious these days,” she tells him. Then she climbs up over him, manhandling him as she pleases; he is loose and unresisting as she sinks down onto him. Taking him in until she is snug up to the pretty, glinting ring she put on him. He throws up his hands and covers his face

She clenches around him a bit, and then reaches for his wrists, and pulls them away.

“No, no, no. I want to see that pretty face of yours,” she says, as she angles herself upwards, and then comes down on him again. He throbs inside of her, just the faintest wisp of magic from their little toy tingling across her nerves.

He turns his head. First one way, then the other. Then he curses as she angles her hips up and sinks down once more. A broken breath slips through his lips. Then another, and as she takes him a bit more roughly, he settles into gasping and trembling and moaning beneath her. Perfect – though she thinks she might have to draw it out more than she intended. If he is reacting _this_ well, she doubts it will take Uthvir long to get him begging. She slows, and Thenvunin nearly cries. His hands clench in the sheets. She lets go of his wrists to slip a hand towards herself, and lets him cover his face again.

“You look beautiful,” she assures him.

His hips buck upwards.

“So very, very beautiful,” Uthvir adds, prowling up along the side of the bed. The hunter has soft ropes, and oil, and an anticipatory gleam in their gaze. “Like a pearl in moonlight.” Leaning across the side of the bed, they brush Thenvunin’s hair back from his face. They kiss the curve of his cheekbone, and draw their lips back. Teeth trailing over the tip of his ear. Thenvunin reaches for them, closing a hand around their neck.

Later, Desire will wonder at this. At the initiative Thenvunin shows; at the permission Uthvir grants. But right then, it is only exceedingly scintillating as the hunter whispers something she cannot hear into Thenvunin’s ear. And he bucks upwards, letting out a frustrated cry, and meeting her fully enough that the whole thing sends her crashing over the edge again.

She tumbles in earnest, this time; falling from stars of ecstasy to Thenvunin’s chest. And when she turns her head, Uthvir cups her cheek, and treats her to a slow, lazy kiss.

And a nip.

“Mine now,” the hunter says.

Thenvunin is still twisting, hard up against her, hot and wanting and denied.

She huffs a bit, but musters her strength enough to roll to the other side of the bed.

“You know you should give a lady a moment,” she says.

“Ah. But I am insatiable,” Uthvir replies, smirking.

“Uthvir,” Thenvunin gasps. He reaches for them again, and they catch his hand, and press a kiss to his palm. The possessive bent to them is uncommon; though it does not seem to exclude her or compete with her so much as angle itself towards Thenvunin. The air shifts, briefly, with a reassuring note. As Desire catches her breath, she marvels at it.

What in all the old gods’ names _happened?_

It seems to have done them both some much-needed good, whatever it was.

With care but also assured skill, Uthvir begins tying Thenvunin up. Not quite as elaborately as she would like under most circumstances, but well enough given the building desperation in the air. The rope is the same colour as Thenvunin’s hair. Soft and shimmery. Rather than hooking him up to the bed posts, Uthvir simply binds him where he lays; wrists and ankles together, thighs, and then arms to his chest. He looks like quite the pretty present when it is done.

The hunter takes their oil, and gently applies it to their lover’s flushed and hyper-stimulated erection. Cooling a bit, she notes. Thenvunin sighs but then also chokes down a sob. 

She notes, with some surprise, that Uthvir’s own erection is gone. The landscape of their lower regions has definitively changed; and she realizes they do not mean to roll Thenvunin over and open him up, but to engulf him themselves, just as she had.

Another interesting twist. She would have thought that far too intimate for the hunter to desire.

After a moment, she moves on the bed, angling past Thenvunin’s legs and resting a questioning hand on Uthvir’s hip.

They glance down at her.

“May I?” she asks, low and quiet.

After a moment, they only smirk, and tilt their head in acquiescence. There is no disquiet about them.

Carefully, she draws questing fingers up the playing on their thighs, and slips it towards the opening between their legs. She has to push some fabric aside to actually reach it. But then her touch sinks into wet, hot flesh. Velvety skin and enticing folds. Uthvir sucks in a breath as she slips a single finger into them. It goes in easy, and she grins, wishing she could taste them.

Another time, perhaps.

“You know, you are quite beautiful, too,” she tells them.

They pause a bit as she brushes up against a spot that makes their hips jerk, and their eyelashes flutter.

“I think it is safe to say everyone in this room is unfairly attractive,” they declare, with just a hint of breathlessness.

“Compliments, my sweet hunter?”

“You are radiant as any blossom in Mythal’s gardens,” they confirm, to her delight.

She brushes more firmly, just so, and get their hips rolling towards her.

“Uthvir, if you do not hurry up and fuck me, I will kill you,” Thenvunin manages to grit out, panting and still caught in the hunter’s admittedly somewhat distracted grasp.

“Does that count as begging?” they ask her.

“No,” she says, wryly. “That would be threatening.”

When Uthvir finally pushes her hand away, though, Thenvunin’s communication skills have dipped again. She rubs her wrist a little as Uthvir positions themselves above him, using one hand to line up, and then, once they have, sinking both hands into their lover’s gorgeous hair. They lower themselves down pointedly. Eyes locked, and hips moving almost at once. A swifter rhythm than the one she had set. But it gets Thenvunin to throw his head back. He strains towards Uthvir with his arms, and bites his lip hard enough to draw blood this time.

The hunter leans in and kisses it up, in between the fervent snap of their hips.

She was right, as it happens. It does _not_ take too long for Uthvir to get him begging. Not quite so lewdly as she might have liked, but certainly with enough desperation.

“Please, Uthvir, please,” Thenvunin asks, arching up to meet their rhythm.

She moves closer, revelling in the beauty of the scene. In Thenvunin’s bared neck, which Uthvir cannot seem to resist pressing love bites into. In the places where the two meet, bound skin caught beneath a single, sweet opening amidst all the planes of armour. In the look in the hunter’s eyes; entranced and hungry and affectionate all in one. When they come the air around them snaps with the spark of their pleasure. Thenvunin strains against his ropes and _keens_ , and she moves a hand to his hip, and whispers.

The ring turns off.

Thenvunin cries out for a different reason, then, and the wash of his release is profound. He grips Uthvir and breaks from his cage. Even if just for a moment. The hunter dives upon him, and ends his cry with a kiss. They cradle his face, and then lean their foreheads together.

Something in her chest clenches at the scene.

Free.

She scarcely has time to fight back the images that thought might conjure, though, before Uthvir is reaching over and tangling their own hand in her hair.

Thenvunin turns his head towards her.

“Wicked thing,” he tells her, exhausted and ragged. But there is something _fond_ in the accusation, now. His eyes slide closed, and he goes utterly boneless before her eyes. Apparently, forgetting entirely that he might have any objections to the still-mostly-armed hunter atop him. Uthvir all but purrs, and nips at his ear.

“Are you besmirching the reputation of a peacekeeper?” she wonders.

“Yes,” Uthvir confirms. “But only because she is a wicked thing; who sends daughters off early to festivals, and then distracts their parents.”

Thenvunin’s eyes fly open.

 _“She what?”_ he demands.


	20. Friendfiction

This morning, Uthvir is _delighted._

They stare at the contents of the purple notebook they had found on Thenvunin’s desk, and grin, sharp and profoundly amused as they page through their find.

In their defence, they had not actually been snooping. Thenvunin had informed them that the scheduling roster for the scouting rotations that month was on his desk. They have a perfectly legitimate reason to be going through his things.

Heading off Mythal’s wilderness scouting parties is proving a fair change in pace from serving as one of Andruil’s ranking hunters, but there are worse duties to be saddled with, by far.

Uthvir had assumed the purple notebook was the log they were looking for, as it was in the middle of the desk. Until they had opened it, of course. And now they find themselves momentarily setting the matter of their responsibilities aside to delight in the actual contents of their discovery.

In Thenvunin’s neat, flourishing penmanship, are stories.

 _Erotic_  stories.

Or… well. They seem more to be the beginning scenarios _for_  erotic stories. Thenvunin seems to struggle to actually narrate the sexual escapades he leads up towards. There are a few pages with scratched out attempts. The word ‘ravished’ is endearingly over-used, and Uthvir is rather delighted by the prevalence of sharp-toothed pursuers biting _claiming_  marks into ‘Prince Thenerassan’s’ irresistible skin, but sadly large chunks of prose are also blotted out to the point of illegibility.

The hunter leans back in Thenvunin’s desk chair, and settles in to read as much of this as they possibly can. The minute Thenvunin finds out, they suspect, he will be raging and blustering and possibly attempting to burn this notebook, and that would be a shame. Uthvir supposes they had best garner as much from it as they can, _while_  they can. It is… possibly an egregious violation of privacy, and they are surprised to realize that some part of their conscience thinks they should put the notebook down and pretend they never found it.

But they are not quite so virtuous as that.

Besides which, it is… a compelling read.

The first few stories are mostly amusing. Prince Thenerassan - or sometimes Lord Thenerassan - is beautiful and desirable and often somewhat dull to read about, until some savage fiend comes and drags him off to have their wicked way with him. Sometimes this fiend bares a striking resemblance to Uthvir, and sometimes they do not. These early attempts feature the most blotted-out paragraphs and abandoned efforts at erotic scenes.

Gradually, though, the little tales begin to shift. Thenerassan takes on roles as an artisan, a dancer, a merchant, a gardener, a poet, or, on one memorable occasion, a foundling raised by giant talking birds. As his origins diversify, so do the origins of his pursuers. From simple ‘savages’ they become corrupt lords, pirates, and most especially, hunters. On the sixteenth little tale, then, the protagonist’s would-be captor gets a name - Uthlin - and is, thereafter, almost exclusively clad in red, sharp and ‘fierce as a thousand hungry sharks’. 

Uthvir likes that description.

The twentieth story is… different, though. Thenerassan is a prince again; the victim of a would-be assassination attempt orchestrated by a jilted former lover. When the prince’s travel party is accosted on the road, they are inadvertently aided by the notorious bandit Uthlin. Uthlin then absconds with the prince, which is much in keeping with previous stories.

But in this one, Uthlin turns out to have a tiny infant daughter, Lathmalen, and to have fled from the clutches of a wicked queen who wishes to slay them both on her sacrificial altar. In short order it becomes apparent that the ‘notorious bandit’ is more displaced and desperate than anything else, and Thenerassan immediately falls in love with their tiny baby, and, for the first time, with Uthlin as well. The story makes few attempts at erotica; and rather than ending with them, it carries on into a sequence where Thenerassan duels the evil queen, defeats her, and takes his new little family back to his own kingdom, where they all live happily ever after.

It is by far the lengthiest instalment.

Uthvir lingers a moment on the page where the concluding paragraphs are written, before turning it very carefully to the next one. 

There are a few more attempts at erotica. A very detailed scene of Uthlin kissing Thenerassan that reads almost like poetry. Another story, and this one is different, too, as the humble-but-lovely clothier Thenerassan is transformed into a hideous beast and forced to flee into the woods when the people around him take him for a monster. There he finds a radiant and sharp-witted hunter who sees the beauty in his eyes, though, and breaks the spell upon him with a kiss.

Uthvir is not quite sure what to make of that one. It’s the largest deviation in formula so far. There is no kidnapping involved, and the tale ends with Thenerassan falling into Uthlin’s arms in unambiguous happiness.

But the next few are more standard. Uthlin’s more sympathetic depiction persists, though, as even in the midst of capturing and ravishing Thenerassan, they are described as beguiling as often as fierce, and protective as often as predatory. Little Lathmalen also makes repeat appearances; sometimes as Uthlin’s baby - often courtesy, in some roundabout fashion, of the real villain of the tale - but sometimes as Thenerassan’s. In one of the stories, a young soldier Thenerassan happens upon a wicked group of cultists who mean to sacrifice a baby in the woods. He slays them all in… uncommonly blunt prose, and rescues the baby, and ends the story with the very firm assertion that she is his daughter now.

It is the only tale in the notebook that does not involve any sex or romance at all, in fact.

Uthvir rather likes it, just the same.

They start getting towards the end of the notebook, then. There are paragraphs and disjointed bits of prose, in amidst a few more brief attempts at erotica. One passage seems to be entirely dedicated to a detailed description of ‘Uthlin’s’ eyes.

They reach blank pages, and are turning all the way towards the back, just to see if anything else might be tucked between them, when they hear the gasp and look up.

Thenvunin is standing in the doorway, white as a sheet, staring at the notebook in Uthvir’s hands. Legitimate fear and horror whirl around him, curling into a twisted note of humiliation, before the man manages to reel it in a little. His gaze snaps to Uthvir’s, and he colours, and pales again. 

Uthvir feels… they cannot say _remorseful_ , as they find themselves holding the notebook a little closer. But the normal urge to bait and rile and mock is nowhere to be found, and they do not care for the horror and humiliation sinking through the atmosphere, even as Thenvunin finally marshals himself and storms over.

“That is _private,”_  he hisses, reaching for the book.

Uthvir has a very strong urge to keep it from his grasp. But it feels like that would be taunting him, somehow, rather than protecting the pages he has written, and so they let him snatch it away and hold it to his own chest.

For a moment the two of them regard one another, as sunlight streams through the chamber windows, and Thenvunin’s cheeks _flame._

Uthvir carefully stands up.

“I do apologize. I had thought it was the information I was looking for, and not the personal journal of a much-revered prince,” they say, stalking around the edge of the desk.

Thenvunin bristles.

“It is creative fiction, that is all, and it is none of your business and you hardly have an excuse for carrying on reading it when you should have realized _immediately…”_

He trails off as Uthvir comes straight up to him and winds their arms around him, and floods the air between them with enough lust to lift a city tower. His hands tighten around the cover of the book and his muscles stiffen a bit as he freezes, and Uthvir slinks right up against him and buries their nose into the hair at the side of his neck, and slides their hands pointedly up the firm muscles of his back.

“Oh, but my prince. What standards could you hold a notorious thief and spy to? Here I came to your palace to steal away the secrets of your noble family, and instead I find myself enthralled. Your beauty is renowned, of course. But rumour did not do it proper credit.”

They press a kiss to the pulse point in Thenvunin’s throat, and it bobs as he swallows. Some of the wretched horror in the air abates, just a bit. Thenvunin’s expression of thunderous displeasure wavers uncertainly.

“What…?” he asks.

Uthvir presses a kiss to his jaw, and slips a hand away from his back, They curl it over one of the ones he has pressed to the notebook.

“I like your stories, my love,” they confess.

“You… you… what?” Thenvunin manages,voice going quiet now; as it often tends to whenever Uthvir uses that particular endearment. He clutches the notebook tighter, but yet more uncertainty eats up his horror. The stiff pallor in his face is giving way to colour, again, too; dusting over the tops of his cheeks.

“You did an unfairness to your Thenerassan, though; you are far more enticing than the prince you described,” Uthvir carries on, running the hand they have at his back up and down his spine. He swallows again, and his gaze latches onto their own.

They smile.

“Forgive me. I liked them. I wanted to keep reading,” they confess. Their smile twists a bit, as the colour in Thenvunin’s cheeks increases, and he keeps floundering for an appropriate response. Moving their hand away from his, they cup his cheek.

“Though there are some parts I feel we could stand to fill in, as well. That bit where Uthlin started fucking his prince on a rooftop had a great deal of potential, I thought, before you abandoned it,” they say.

Thenvunin lets out a sound that seems like it doesn’t know whether it’s a scandalized hiss or more of a broken whine. He snaps his mouth shut and purses his lips, frowning even as his aura wavers distinctly towards more lustful vicinities. Thankfully. Though Uthvir still thinks they might owe him some compensation for that inadvertent awfulness which had struck him before.

“If you are proposing to distract me from your violation of my privacy with _incredibly inadvisable rooftop sex_  it absolutely will not work,” Thenvunin hisses at them, finally settling into the family territory of outraged indignation. He does not bat Uthvir’s hands away from him, though, nor make a move to step back. If anything, as Uthvir curls their touch around his jaw, he sways a but more into them.

“It could work. Set up the right wards, pick the right rooftop, and no one would be any the wiser,” Uthvir says, slyly.

“That is not what I meant!” Thenvunin snaps.

“But it would be so pleasant, with the sunlight warming your skin, and my claiming bites upon your neck and shoulders,” they say. “My prince.”

“Uthvir, you-”

“Uthlin,” they correct, with a wink. Thenvunin flusters outright, then, a few incoherent attempts at words flying from his lips as his hands worry the edges of his book, and his eyes cannot seem to decide what to focus on anymore. Uthvir catches them with their own again, and runs a thumb over Thenvunin’s cheek.

“Uthlin the thief, my Prince Thenerassan,” they say, taking a step back and ducking into a bow. “And if you wish to catch me before I away with your closely-guarded secrets, then I suspect I shall you see upon the rooftops.”

Before Thenvunin can come up with an appropriate response to that, then, they back towards the window. A few twists of magic and intent, and their form shifts into that of a large hawk, and they wing their way out through the opened panel, and up towards the palace spires.

Settling on the most secluded roof - a narrow one situated away from most of the high balconies and gardens - they begin raising the necessary spells while they wait to see if Thenvunin will come.

It takes some time. 

But when he does arrive, Prince Thenerassan is dressed quite nicely, in shades of amber and turquoise, with a sword at his hip and a sheen of fresh gloss upon his lips. The dastardly Uthlin watches him stalk onto the centre of the rooftop before swooping down from the top of the banner pole, and landing as an elf behind their quarry.

The prince whips around; sword drawn.

Uthlin disarms him easily, though. Clearly, Thenerassan has some strength and training, but he is hesitant to employ them in earnest. Inexperience? Or perhaps the dashing thief has made an impression of their own?

“The lovely prince is bold; but ultimately not a match for my prowess,” they say, circling their quarry.

Thenerassan hesitates a moment. Tracking their movements with his eyes.

They trail a hand across the backs of his shoulders.

“I… I cannot let you escape with those secrets,” he says.

“You could not possibly stop me from taking them. Unless you care to offer something in exchange for their return,” Uthlin suggests, and leers at him a bit. They let their gaze trail up his figure, lingering over the curvature of his backside a little long.

“Such as?” Thenerassans asks; the slightest tremble in his voice. “I have wealth and riches aplenty.”

“Indeed you do. Though I have little need for gemstones and fine fabrics.” They trail a hand through the loose strands of the prince’s hair, and catch some between their fingers. “It is the thrill that employs me, more than anything. Your enemies offered me fair compensation for this information. But I took the job for the challenge of obtaining it. Perhaps, though, you might offer another type of excitement?”

They lock eyes with Thenerassan, and kiss the strands of his hair.

Heat spikes in the air.

“That…? You mean…?” the prince’s gaze darts around, catching on the spells and wards around them. “But we are out in the open here. Anyone could happen upon us.”

“I asked for excitement, my lord. The risk of discovery carries a good deal of that,” Uthlin counters.

Thenerassan regards them for a moment. His chin tilts, defiance in his gaze. But then he reaches up, and begins to unfasten the top layer of his clothing.

“I cannot let you take those secrets. If this is your price for them, then I must pay it,” he says.

Uthlin resume their prowl around him as he divests himself. Slowly. Each falling layer revealing more of his tantalizing skin, and shapely figure, until he is down to the last layer; a flimsy shift that does not leave much at all to the imagination.

He reaches for it, and Uthlin stalls him; closing a hand around his wrist. Their claws are uncommonly long.

Thenerassan’s eyes go a little wide.

“Leave it,” they say, raking their own gaze across him again. “The lace suits you.”

So does the sunlight falling onto his skin, and the wind just gently passing through his hair. Uthlin soaks in the image, before trailing their touch over the growing tent at the front of the flimsy little shift. They glance at the pile of clothes, and note that the prince has just so happened to bring a small jar of oil with him.

A lucky coincidence.

They pluck it up, and then toss it into the prince’s hands.

Or mean to.

Thenerassan is thoroughly out-of-sorts, though, and apparently does not see the move coming, as the jar ends up sailing clean past him and smashing onto the rooftop instead.

Both of them pause, and stare at the shattered glass and oil sinking into the grey stone.

“Ah,” Uthvir says.

“Why did you throw it?” Thenvunin demands. “You could have given me some warning!”

“I held it up! What did you imagine I would do?” Uthvir counters. 

“Why would you possibly throw it to me?” Thenvunin asks, folding his arms defensively.

They lift their hand, emphasizing their lengthened claws. “I want to keep these a while long for dramatic effect; I was going to have you touch yourself,” they explain.

Thenvunin opens his mouth. Then he snaps it shut again, and scowls, even as the heat in the air spikes once more.

“Salacious,” he accuses.

“Precisely,” Uthvir says. Then they sigh. “Wait here. I will go and get another one.”

“Oh, and I suppose it would make perfect sense for Prince Thenerassan to just stand on the roof, hoping the dastardly spy will return in order to keep coercing sex from him?” Thenvunin huffs.

“For now we shall simply pause, and then resume where we left off and pretend no one fumbled any vital objects in the meantime,” Uthvir reasons, more than a little amused now at their husband’s conflicting outrages. They raise a eyebrow, lips twitching. “Unless you have changed your mind?”

Thenvunin’s cheeks flame, and he frowns at the broken jar.

“Just be quick about it!” he snaps.

“Faster than an arrow made of dreams,” they promise, with a wink, before changing back into a hawk and alighting from the roof.

They sweep down into Thenvunin’s garden, then, and head through the open doors to his room, plucking what they need from the bedside table. A glance reveals that the notebook has been relocated there, as well.

Uthvir feels a moment of touched surprise at that, before tucking the bottle under their arm, and running a hand just lightly across the cover.

Then they turn to head back to their waiting prince.

Delightful.


	21. Enthusiasm

Thenvunin has a suspicion.

It is one, he thinks, that has been growing in him for quite some time now. But one which he has also never really looked dead in the eye before. It would have required too many admissions of his own interests and desires to really get around to it. Too many hard truths. But of late, he has been trying to be less blind about these things; particularly where they pertain to Uthvir.

The point being, Thenvunin has a suspicion, and it is this:

Uthvir _really_ gets off on Thenvunin making noises in the bedroom.

It is a tentative theory, at first. A year ago, Thenvunin would have been more likely to venture the notion that Uthvir enjoyed _degrading_  their partners, and that hearing them exclaim, or wantonly moan, or otherwise vocally display their lust would be appealing to them only insofar as it would betray their lover’s lack of dignity.

But Thenvunin is rethinking that stance, obviously; and the radical new concept which has occurred to him is that Uthvir does not enjoy causing degradation, humiliation, or shame.

Uthvir, quite possibly, enjoys _pleasing._ And is simply willing to accept a wide range of activities as pleasurable.

Thenvunin can find further evidence of this theory in various memories, but memory is often sketchy, and at best an unreliable resource. The most responsible thing to do, under the circumstances, is investigate the matter through their continued encounters and more recent dalliances. 

After all, they are married now; they will be together for quite some time. Discovering further nuances to their bedroom activities is only the responsible thing to do.

And Thenvunin also cannot help but dwell upon that first night after they had been married. Of Uthvir’s skin without a stitch of covering on it; of how they had hesitated, and pressed forward, and always seemed to handle things best when they could hear Thenvunin’s breaths turn ragged, or coax the rare moan from his lips. How readily Uthvir would offer praise in return for such lapses of restraint.

Thenvunin ventures his first test of this theory one evening when he is shut in Uthvir’s room, at the winter estate. Lavellan is fast asleep in her own, down the hall, and the door is locked. Still, instincts tell him to keep as quiet as possible, lest any stray noises travel down the hall and lead in to a wholly inappropriate situation. Uthvir is doing some… admittedly interesting things to him with hot wax, but his new spouse does not seem to anticipate wrestling much sound from him under the circumstance, even so.

But when their tongue laves across the sensitive, pebbling skin of one of his nipples, Thenvunin conquers centuries of habitual restraint, and lets out a moan.

The hunter stalls. Just a bit.

Their gaze flits up to him.

Then they repeat the motion.

Thenvunin does not manage many vocal expressions that evening, just the same. But Uthvir does pay peculiar attention to his chest as compared to their typical standards, and it is… fairly transparent that they are attempting to provoke a repeat of that sound. 

Well.

That is telling, he supposes.

His next experiment is waged out of doors, a few nights later, as he joins Uthvir on a brief expedition to check the safety measures located in the wilderness beyond Mythal’s winter estate. The venture strands the both of them out in the woods for one night, but the weather is lovely, and they take full advantage of the seclusion. Uthvir draws him into their tent, and kisses him thoroughly. They move their mouth to the shell of his right ear, and nip at the tip; sending tiny little flares of sensation bolting through him.

It is much easier to fight the impulse to fight his impulses, he finds, when they are alone in the wilderness, with no other soul around for miles. Much easier when the only person who could possibly hear him is Uthvir themselves.

When Uthvir gets his belt off, and slides their hand down the front of his pants, he gasps.

Again, there is just the briefest, tiny pause. Surprise, he thinks. They do not show it much, but he can _almost_  feel it on them. And then he can feel it as their focus centres substantially on that act; as they take him in hand, their nails shortening, their touch moving thoroughly across the length of him while their mouth keeps at his ear.

“Uthvir,” he breathes, his own hands settling onto the hunter’s waist. Clutching their back unsettles them when they are not clad in armour; and right now, Uthvir is only wearing their soft, dark under clothing. And unsettling them could ruin this experiment.

The hunter lets out a little growl, and bites at his neck. The sharp points of their teeth burn, and the burn feels like it shoots straight through him, in fiery lines of heat and pleasure that beat through the rest of him once they reach his heart. He wants to gasp, and almost stops himself, reflexively. But then he catches the reflex instead, and he sucks in a rush of air.

Uthvir licks the bite mark and strokes at him, their free hand holding him steady, the lust in the air thick and even more potent than usual. 

It is not much of a surprise when the hunter bears him down to the floor of the tent. Thenvunin’s hips jerk towards their hand, and he presses a kiss of his own to their temple. When their thumb brushes over the head of his erection, he lets another breathy sound of pleasure fly free.

Uthvir curses and sets into his clothing in earnest, then, and he is glad for his foresight in bringing several outfits as they rip his pants open, and grasp his hips, and set upon him with their mouth as if he is water and they have spent years wandering the desert. His breath hitches when they drag their tongue across his length. He manages to only half swallow his moan when they take him between their lips.

Their gaze upon him is _burning,_ when he looks down, and sees them moving so intently between his legs. They pause only to slickly coat their fingers in a thick, cool oil packed away in the tent. And then they take him into their mouth again as they drag their touch to his entrance, a practised, probing stroke that makes his muscles flutter reflexively. Their mouth is hot and warm as they slowly venture their first finger into him.

Thenvunin grips the floor of the tent, and then changes his mind and moves one of his hands to their hair, instead. They pull back to lick at him, their touch easing him open, slow and familiar. But when they brush him at the perfect angle, he does not fight the soft ‘ah’ that wants to escape him; nor the temptation to arch, just a bit.

“Thenvunin,” Uthvir purrs, warm and approving.

It does something to him. That voice, low across his sensitive, flushed skin. Calling his name. Wanting him. Praising him.

He supposes, perhaps… the effect is similar in reverse, too.

When the hunter gets a second finger into them, they swallow him down at the same time. Thenvunin tightens his grip in their hair, just a bit, and moans. The nails of their free hand dig into his thigh. The suck at him, almost furiously intent, now, pressing at him from the inside. He brings his free hand to his face and bites down on the back of his wrist, hips jerking, fighting for control before he recalls that he has a reason not to stifle himself.

He wrenches his hand away, as Uthvir thrusts a third finger into him, and pants unevenly. 

Their fingers hit the right spot again and the full length of him slides down their throat, and sends him flying. He calls their name when he comes, broken and high and _loud._

His nerves tingle, and there are stars dancing across his vision, and Uthvir’s mouth slides off of him. The hunter slinks up his body, and their own arousal presses clearly to his thigh as they roll him over, and clutch him close from behind. They do not try to see to their own pleasure straight away, though. They run an almost comforting, delicate hand over Thenvunin’s softening erection, and press their chest to his back, and kiss his neck.

“My love,” they say, softly. His heart clenches in his chest, flooding with a sudden rush of warmth. “You are so glorious in your pleasure. Your voice is so perfect, crying my name.”

Uthvir’s touch trails down his chest, and their own firmly aroused flesh presses against his backside, as they gently stroke his spent, sensitive skin. They bite him again, and he shivers at the blatant attempt to stoke his cooking embers again. Their voice is a whisper at his ear, as their hips roll against him.

“My Thenvunin. I am going to take you until dawn. I am going to fuck every pretty noise I can right out of you, my heart. I swear it.”

Thenvunin closes his eyes, and shivers a bit. He closes a hand over the one they have trailing down his chest. He draws it up to his lips, and swallows, and tells the cluster of protests jangly stiffly in his head to be quieter as he kisses their knuckles. And presses more firmly back into them.

Uthvir’s own breath hitches.

He thinks, perhaps, he should say something. Some endearment, or… assurance? But he cannot quite manage it, warring as he is with centuries worth of restraint and uncertainties and, admittedly, insecurities. So he sticks to the simplicity of kisses instead, pressing his lips to their knuckles, again, and then down to the point of their pulse.

Uthvir’s own mouth tends to the bite marks they gave him.

They keep their promise, too. When he begins to harden again, in remarkably short order, they get him onto his hands and knees. They take him gently, at the start. Teasing his entrance before they slowly sink in, and fill him up. He bends, and bites his lip, and lets a moan escape him at their first thrust. But when they keep steadily with it, and fail to increase their pace, he lets a tattered curse escape him.

Their thighs press against his. Their fingers are steady, warm points at his hips. The length of them inside of him stretches and grazes over his nerves, and he needs _more._

“Please,” he gasps out.

His whole body feels like it flushes. Uthvir thrusts a little harder, though, and their grip on him tightens.

“Please, fuck, Uthvir, _please,”_  he gasps out, even as shame tries to keep the words from twisting free.

The fierce growl that merits sends another shock of arousal straight through him, though, and it is near blinding in intensity as Uthvir grips his hips and goes _hard._  Like a switch has been flipped, the hunter sets the most ferocious pace they ever have, just shy of too much, and Thenvunin finds himself too far-gone to even need to resist the urge to stifle his voice. 

Words tumble out of him as if a dam has been broken, as Uthvir’s hips snap and their hands clutch him, reaching around and barely stroking him once before he spills across their hand, faltering and crying out in the midst of the stars exploding in his skull. His arms give out and his hunter hauls him up, holding him tight as they give a few more ragged thrusts and then come, too, clutching him in their lap.

As the hazy fog of lust loosens its clutches on his mind, he shudders, and humiliation settles into place instead. A sour curl of it that sits uneasy in his stomach.

Uthvir kisses his shoulders.

“That was incredible,” they say.

Their breath is ragged, their chest heaving at his back.

Humiliation is chased back down by weight of their hands on his skin, and their voice in his ear. Whispering endearments as they settle more comfortably alongside him again, and brush careful touches over him, resting half on top of him to ply his lips with kisses, and shiver at the brush of his fingers on their bared skin.

“I love you,” Uthvir says, in that strange, punched-out way that makes Thenvunin think of the gasps he would, at times, rather stifle. Of letting them out instead, because it might please his hunter.

He swallows.

“It is not dawn yet, is it?” he asks, lightly, as his eyes itch.

Uthvir laughs and steals another kiss, and nips at him.

“No,” they say, raising an eyebrow and nipping his lips, before climbing on top of him entirely. "Am I still the insatiable one?”

“You are the one on top of me, you wicked thing,” he counters, without heat. Both of their touches are still languid and lax from their recent release. An affectionate interlude between main events.

So.

The second round of experimentation is leaning Thenvunin towards the theory that Uthvir does, indeed, like when he makes noises.

He supposes, in light of everything, and given that the location is acceptable, and the circumstances are right, that it is probably acceptable for a man to make some noise when he is having sex with his ravishing spouse.

If he should feel so inclined.

Uthvir kisses him.

He lets them steal his next gasp directly from his lips.


	22. Oral

Thenvunin does not do oral sex.

Uthvir has never asked him to, which, even when he was… more conflicted on the subject of their interactions, was something he privately appreciated. Perhaps even part of the reason why he lost a good deal of trepidation towards the hunter after their first few encounters, however little he might have liked to admit as much. Because Thenvunin does not like performing oral sex. He does not like having heavy appendages shoved down his throat, he does not like being yanked forwards by his hair, and tasting sweat and smelling the musky scent of another person’s genitals as they use him that way.

The very thought provokes a reaction in him that is unambiguously negative. There is no conflict of desires in that. If anything, the entire prospect makes him profoundly queasy. Even outright afraid.

Thenvunin does not do oral sex. But Uthvir does. 

They draw sharp teeth carefully over sensitive skin, and take him onto their tongue, and suck at him, and toy with him. They press their lips to the most sensitive parts of him. They even draw further back and put their mouth to places he never dreamed anyone would ever, _ever_  want to…

And they seem to enjoy doing it to him, too. Thenvunin does not hammer against their throat, or choke them on himself, and they do not simulate such an activity, either. It is entirely different from what crosses Thenvunin’s mind when he thinks of this sort of act, to be honest. 

He thinks of this afterwards, as he draws in ragged breaths, and Uthvir carefully unties him. The hunter is still dressed, but only lightly. Tight, dark pants, and their flimsy undershirt. They kiss his ankles and wrists, and when his hands are free, Thenvunin settles his grip around their waist. 

Uthvir gives him a questioning look.

“Lay down,” he requests.

His lover hesitates, for a moment. But then they do as requested, pulling the last few scraps of soft rope away, and letting Thenvunin lean over them on the bed. He steals a kiss, and slips a thumb beneath the waistband of their pants. Uthvir shivers a bit. When he pulls back, they raise an eyebrow.

“Something on your mind?” they ask him.

“What shape are you?” Thenvunin asks back, but he thinks he can already tell. They are aroused, but there is no telling tent to the front of their pants. Before they can answer, he eases down the fabric, pulling it past their hips to reveal golden skin and damp lower lips.

“Would you prefer a different arrangement?” Uthvir asks, in that tone he has come to recognize as _pointedly_  casual.

“No,” he decides. This should make it even more different, in fact, and therefore easier. Though it still seems a… mixed prospect. The _concept_  of using his mouth this way holds very little appeal, all around. But the reality of Uthvir’s bared flesh is not unpleasant. He starts out by kissing the skin of their abdomen. That is easy. It is just skin, like almost anywhere else on them. Thenvunin has kissed his love’s lips, and palms, and forehead, and cheek. He has even pressed tentative kisses to the mauling on their back, though they had ended that swiftly. He traces his lips over them, and gradually moves downwards, as the scent of their arousal grows stronger, and it is a very easy matter.

He braces himself before he takes his first tentative lick of their damp folds, though. They do not taste _good,_  but it’s not the overwhelming flood of sticky saltiness he recalls. Though, it’s not spurting directly into his mouth either, so he supposes that counts for something. Uthvir shivers again, and after a second, spreads their legs a little wider in invitation.

He glances up at them. They’re watching him, expression carefully neutral. He looks back at his task, and then hesitates.

“You do not have to,” they say.

_You have to. You owe me. If I want a hand on my cock I will use my own. Open your mouth._

A hand moves to his cheek. Fingers thread into his hair, but rather than coaxing him downwards, they draw him upwards. Uthvir’s neutral expression turns rather sharply knowing, although what they should know, he cannot imagine. It is not as if his past experiences are comparable to theirs. Sethtaren never forced him. Never bound him, caged him, or threatened his loved ones in exchange for compliance.

It would have been less shameful if he had. Then Thenvunin could at least blame him for it all.

Uthvir kisses him.

They draw him close, curling an arm around him and moving their hand down to his shoulder, and then somehow after a few moments they flip him underneath them. His lover’s sharp teeth and nails are blunted as they brush their hands over him, and he realizes he is shuddering.

His eyes itch.

As Uthvir presses their lips to the side of his neck, Thenvunin clears his throat, and settles his own hands onto the bared skin of their biceps.

“Thenvunin,” they say.

“I did not like it,” he finds himself saying; as if the words have been waiting to rush out for all of this time. “It hurt, it always hurt with him, but sometimes I was aroused anyway. But never when he did that.”

Uthvir stills, a moment.

Then they lift themselves up, and card their fingers gently through his hair. They brush back the tears that leak out of the corners of his eyes. Thenvunin half expects to see derision in their expression. 

He almost quails at the sight of their anger, instead. But their touch is very gentle, even when the tips of their nails trail across his scalp. They lean in, and kiss his temple.

“Who?” they ask, quietly.

He lets out a long breath.

“He is dead,” Thenvunin admits. “Died in the war. He was not a cruel sort, he just… got impatient at times. I could have said no. He might have slapped me a bit, but he would not have forced the issue.”

Uthvir goes silent and tense, enough to make him start to feel nervous. But then they sag against him. They move their caresses down his neck, and to his chest, and bury their nose into his hair. Then they inhale, deeply, and he knows they are attempting to regain their equilibrium.

One of their hands comes to rest at his throat. A familiar position, but this time it settles gently over it. As if soothing. Their touch trails up, brushing over his lips, and something tingles. 

An unneeded healing spell, to ease bruised or swollen skin. His heart clenches in his chest. Uthvir is not normally so… impractical, nor sentimental. But a cool, soothing sensation travels down the back of his throat, and even though he is perfectly fine and it has been thousands of years since anyone’s intruded upon him there, he struggles to muster up enough pretence to object.

“It was unpleasant. It was not the end of the world,” he finally manages to say, though the protest sounds very weak.

Uthvir kisses his cheek.

“There would be very few similarities between that experience and… I mean, with different parts involved, and you lying down instead of standing up…”

Uthvir holds him down, and works their arms around him, and does not give him the chance to try and put his mouth to them again.

“It hardly seems fair, given what we are to one another now, to let you keep instigating everything. It must be disappointing, at times…” he trails off, trembling a bit. Swallows around the soothing cool of his throat, as a few more tears squeeze out of the corners of his eyes.

Uthvir’s heartbeat presses to his own.

“…Please do not leave me,” he asks.

The words slip out quiet. Almost like a confession. A cracked, broken whisper, and then he is sobbing. It is ridiculous of him. _Beyond_ ridiculous of him. Uthvir is not going to leave him over his inability to provide something that they have never once asked for. If they are going to leave, it will likely be over something they have actually objected to. One of the multitude of actual issues which have risen between them over the years. And yet, Thenvunin finds none of those as frightening as ancient insecurities dredged up from a time before they ever met.

“I will not leave you,” Uthvir promises, low and secret and safe. And just a little dangerous, too. There is an edge to their voice. Not an edge angled towards Thenvunin, though. Like their anger, it seems to burn outwards instead.

At length, Thenvunin finds himself calming. The warmth and the steady heartbeat against his own, the lingering relaxation of his recent release, and the feel of Uthvir’s arms firmly around him ease him into a less fraught state. Embarrassment replaces anxiety, and he begins to chastise himself. Just what was _that?_  It had been his own idea, and then he had hesitated, and the whole thing had been set aside by Uthvir, and then he had gone and lost his composure _anyway._

And yet it feels like a knot buried deep, deep down in his chest, has ever-so-slightly begun to relax open.

“I will try again,” he offers.

Uthvir is quiet for a long moment. But of course, they are not asleep.

“Another time, perhaps. If you still wish to,” they decide.

Thenvunin nods.

“You are patient,” he concedes.

Tilting their head, Uthvir looks up at him. Their eyes glitter darkly in the dim light.

“I am not waiting for my satisfaction, Thenvunin,” they say. 

The tone of their voice is such that it leaves no doubt that the hunter is plenty satisfied with the acts they already commit. It curls, almost mocking of the concept that matters could be otherwise, and while part of Thenvunin bristles, part of him is relieved, too. Their hips shift against him, and brush up against his groin. The kiss they press into him is a little more sharp, now. A little more lustful.

“Insufferable, salacious thing,” he accuses, with far too much fondness.

“Precisely,” they agree.


	23. Time Travel Crossover Hell

Thenvunin is taking very deep breaths.

Breathing is fairly simple. He has been doing it successfully for most of his life. There was, reportedly, a somewhat rocky start to the beginning of it for him, and that may be at least partly to blame for why he seems to have troubles with it whenever situations get too dire.

“Just breathe, Papa,” his daughter instructs, as her hand rubs soothing circles into his back.

That they have travelled back in time is, on its own, fairly difficult to process. That his thirty-year-old daughter is handling it _much_ better than he is does not help. Except that it does, in that she has a fairly steady, grounding voice, and is quite good at handling him when he is… overwhelmed. But even so. She must be frightened, he thinks. She must be so frightened, and for him to be the one receiving comfort and reassurance is an unacceptable reversal of the natural order of things.

“Everything will be alright,” he manages to get out, as he sucks in another long breath, and attempts to stand up again.

Lavellan’s hand on his back offers gentle but firm dissuasion towards that idea.

“Of course it will be,” she promises, going back to the soothing circles once she seems certain he will stay put. Admittedly, standing has not worked out so well for him up to this point, but even so.

They have gone back in time.

 _Hundreds of years_ back in time.

Lavellan should not even be born yet. _Uthvir_ might even be… Thenvunin quickly counts in his head. No, Uthvir should be alive, at least. Perhaps quite young, but alive. That is a relief. Even though it would not, theoretically, make too much of a difference if it they had gone far enough back for that to not be the case. They need to get back to their own time. They need to get back _swiftly._

“Look at it this way, Papa, at least we are still in our proper bodies,” Lavellan says, giving his shoulders a pat.

He glances at her, baffled.

“What?” he asks.

“Well, I just… that would theoretically make things worse. I suppose. If we were not,” she offers.

Clearly, their situation is indeed getting to her; and his poor, precious child is being as brave as ever. Thenvunin manages to stand up, then, and gets his arms around her. His resolve firms. He is the parent in this bizarre, devastating situation. It is his duty to get himself and his daughter back to where they belong, as swiftly as possible, and before it causes his child any more distress than it already has. She may be technically grown, but his daughter is not even a hundred years old yet.

 _Uthvir_ is not even a hundred years old yet.

…He firmly reminds himself that he cannot possibly sit back down and sink his head into his hands again. He clutches his daughter a bit more tightly instead.

“I will figure out how to fix this,” he promises.

“I know, Papa. I will help,” Lavellan says, soothingly.

“Perhaps we should go to Mythal,” he suggests. Surely, he thinks, he could make a compelling case for the believability of their scenario, with another identical copy of himself running around out there somewhere. And she would help see them safely back to where they belong, he expects. She would not likely want to rob her future self of two skilled and dedicated servants.

Lavellan winces a bit.

“I do not know about that idea. If we go to Mythal and tell her we are from the future, she might ask us _about_ the future. And I expect if we warn her about certain events, she will seek to prevent them from transpiring. And if we do _not_ warn her about certain events, then when we return, she will likely be very upset that we failed to mention them.”

It has been a very stressful day, so it takes Thenvunin a moment to parse together her meaning.

When he does, though, it feels as if a stone has settled into his stomach.

Andruil.

His daughter is speaking of Andruil’s death. Of course.

Somewhere out there, at this moment of time, Uthvir is still under her service. They might even be young and untried enough to have failed to garner her… regard.

Thenvunin could warn his hunter.

But if Uthvir never garners Andruil’s attention, then they might never gain Lavellan from her. And if they never gain Lavellan from her, then they will never bring her to Thenvunin. They will never become a family. Would he and Lavellan then go back to their own time and immediately forget about their relationship to one another? Would they land in a future where no one else recalls it?

And what if, by chance, some small change borne simply of their presence here alters things, too? What if Lavellan is not found by Andruil this time? What if she is found by no one? What if she dies as an infant, alone in the forest, and vanishes from existence before his very eyes?

“Papa, you are crushing me,” Lavellan informs him, with a somewhat strained voice.

He loosens his hold on her immediately.

Still.

He does not know what to do with this calamity. It feels like fate is suddenly poised to rip apart all that he has gained in the past few years.

“Breathe,” Lavellan tells him, as she eases him into sitting back down. She gets her hands onto his shoulders, and has him look at her. That helps. She is still here. She has not vanished.

He should not tell her about the danger of that, though. There would be nothing she could do, and it would be a terrible burden upon her.

“What if you disappear?” Thenvunin blurts.

“I am not going to disappear,” Lavellan tells him. Her gaze locks with his, and he tries to look like he fully believes that. Like it was just some stray, strange, random thing he had suggested, and in no way a prospect that should actually terrify her. She regards him steadily for a moment, and then lets out a long breath.

“Alright, Papa,” she says, softly. “Thenvunin.”

He blinks.

Why on earth is she using his name?

Her fingers curl into the fabric of his shirt. She wavers, for a moment, and the distress that flashes across her face makes him feel his own resolve harden. No. He absolutely must pull himself together. She is _scared,_ however maturely she is attempting to be. However strong she is fighting to be. His mouth opens to offer a stream of reassurances, as he raises his hands towards her.

“I have done this before,” she tells him. Her touch moves, gently, away from his shoulders, before he can grasp her hands.

He stalls.

“What?” he asks, baffled.

“I have done this before,” she repeats, folding her arms and not quite meeting his gaze. “Travelled back in time. That was how I landed in the forest, where Andruil found me. I do not know why, but the… process that sent me back, it changed me, too. I think it tried to remake me, so I could fit in with this world. But it started from scratch. I was around thirty years old when I left, and I was an infant when I arrived.”

Thenvunin’s mind pulls up a total, uncomprehending blank.

“What?” he finds himself repeating, quietly.

Lavellan lets out a long breath.

“I did not mean… I did not mean to deceive you, not really. At first I could not communicate very well, and then when I could I was still nearly helpless, and afraid of how you would take it. I tried to just leave, but you got so upset every time I ‘ran off’, and I knew it would hurt you if I did, and I was still a child and I did not even know what I was supposed to do, so I thought I would stay. And I know it changes things, to know I was never really who you thought I was. But you and Uthvir, you took such good care of me. And I was so hurt and tired and alone, and I loved you. It did not take long at all for me to love you. And when I loved you I did not know how to tell you, especially then, even when I could have, because I could not bear the thought then you would hate me for this. I did not ask for this to happen. I never planned to go back, and I certainly never thought things would go the way they did once I had. If I could have looked after myself I would have spared you the trouble, but I cannot regret it, because… because…”

Her voice cracks. Tears spill out of the corners of her eyes, and she raises a hand to her mouth, as if to push back the sob that is obviously attempting to escape her.

Thenvunin has no idea what is going on.

But his daughter is distraught.

He stands up, and gets his arms around her again. She pushes at him at little, at first; before her resolve vanishes entirely, and she clutches him tightly instead. She buries her face into his shoulder, and shakes and sobs, and as she does Thenvunin’s poor, overtaxed mind begins to make sense of what she has told him. She travelled back in time, and turned into a baby. She was thirty when she left; just as she is thirty, now. Perhaps there is some sort of curse upon her, that has her leaping wildly through time every thirty years? But this time is different. She is not an infant again; and she has him with her.

So perhaps not.

Even so, it seems she is older than he thought. Which would explain her exceptional maturity. But she was also a baby, Thenvunin knows. She was _his_ baby. She _is_ his baby. He can recall holding her, dressing her, feeding her. Kissing her cheeks, and giving her baths, and brushing her hair. And a few decades, he thinks, is still barely more than a baby. Thenvunin is thousands of years old.

It is the matter of six versus three, by his reckoning. But he can see where she must have been distressed. Where she must have felt as if only a thin veil of deception was keeping her from the total loss of his love. He has felt such things before, himself, desperately grasping at illusions to keep what he fears at bay.

“I have you,” he promises. “I have you, little heart. Do not worry. I love you.”

She cries harder.

“I am sorry,” she says.

He shushes her.

“Not your fault,” he whispers. And he is fairly certain of that, too. He has known his daughter possessed a great deal of personality from an early age, and he is well familiar with its ups and downs now. This – whatever this is – is not her fault. Not directly, at least.

When her shaking has subsided some, he gets her sitting down with him. They are in a small garden, in a subsection of the crossroads. Not the most comfortable of locales, but for the time being, it is quiet and unoccupied, and private enough to serve their purposes.

Lavellan wipes at her tears, and he gives her a handkerchief.

“Now,” he says, gently but with a firmness he feels building up at the core of himself. “You tell me the whole of it.”

She hesitates.

He waits.

At length, in a rather halting voice, she begins.

The scenario she spreads out before him is, to put it bluntly, horrifying. A future where the Dreaming is cut off from the Waking world by a barrier. Elves who live fleeting lives,  on the fringes of a society run by other, swift-dying creatures. People born without magic. People born with it, and feared and hated for what little power they can struggle to carry through the devastating barrier, erected by some foolish rebel to imprison the leaders of the people after their own ambitions and a maddening, powerful poison drove them to nearly destroy all of existence.

His daughter, weighed down by forces she could not understand. By magic she could not recognize. Losing body parts she could not regain. He thinks she is leaving parts out, as well, and that makes it all the more horrible because if this is what she _is_ telling him, than what has she deemed _terrible enough to omit?_

“And then I failed,” she says, a long last. Quiet and a bit hoarse. “I failed to stop him. But in the end, he sent me in his place.”

Thenvunin considers this.

Why had he sent her in his place? Not that he is not grateful the man _did._ Thenvunin would, by far, prefer to have his gallant daughter than some world-maiming lunatic. No matter how gently she seems to describe him, at times; nor how surprisingly fair-handed she is in her explanations of him, despite the fact that the man essentially…

His mind halts.

A suspicion dawns.

No.

Oh, _no_.

“You were in love with one another,” Thenvunin guesses.

Lavellan freezes. Caught. He knows when he has caught his daughter, and something in him clenches viciously. He feels outraged. _Incensed._ Why does this keep happening?! Why do depraved lunatics keep preying upon his loved ones? _Why?_

This man was, as she described him, from Thenvunin’s own time.

“Give me his name,” he demands.

“It does not matter. He is dead,” she insists.

“Yes, well, perhaps I wish to extend my gratitude to his still-living counterpart, for making certain my charming and much-loved child came into my life,” he counters, as calm as he has ever heard himself sound.

“He would just be confused,” Lavellan counters. “And anyway, I have not met him. He might not come around for a long while yet.”

“Then when he arrives we can celebrate,” Thenvunin tightly suggests.

“I am not telling you his name.”

“Lavellan.”

“No.”

“You cannot possibly still love him after all of that!”

“And what if I do?” she asks. There are tears in her eyes again, and the air around her is a maelstrom of misery. Her hands clench, and she looks down. “What if I do? What kind of a fool or monster does that make me, Papa? There were people I loved in my world. And people I didn’t, who still deserved better than they got, just the same. I failed them. Because I loved him. I could have killed him, and I did not, because I loved him. And the same was true of him, in the end. And now I am here, with you, and I am _happy_ with you and Nanae. How is that right? How can that be right?”

Reaching out, Thenvunin tucks her in closer to himself. This, at least, he knows. The circumstances might be strange; but he has seen soldiers go through this, many times before. The death of comrades, the loss of great battles, of homes and friends and family. The guilt of being the one who survived. He has felt it himself, walking away from battles where others fell.

“It is not your fault,” he reiterates, stroking a hand over her head. “You did not kill them, my darling. And they all failed, too, come to it. No one should ever hold the whole world in their hands. Even our leaders do not try to carry that weight alone.”

Lavellan leans into him.

She is quiet for a long moment.

“But he had to,” she says at length, tiny and hopelessly sad. “That is why I cannot hate him, not really. He had to try to carry it all. He wanted me to help him. He just… could not see how.”

Thenvunin closes his eyes, and takes in a deep breath.

He drops a kiss onto her head.

This matter, he supposes, can wait. They are still… well. The world has upturned itself again, twice over. He thinks he might be getting a bit better at handling that. Or at least, at blocking out the details enough to manage to keep functioning. His own eyes burn, but he bites back the tears, and holds Lavellan through hers. He can track down whoever broke her heart, ruined her laugh, and quite probably touched her inappropriately when they get things back in order.

His thoughts lurch a bit, and he redoubles his grip on her.

Someone touched his baby _before she was even a baby._

What a depraved monster.

~

The upside to it all, of course, is that Lavellan actually does seem to know a thing or twenty about time travel, and what, precisely, seems to be involved. Which allows her to offer some reassurance to him on the front of ‘will her existence be erased if Thenvunin steps on the wrong bug or sneezes on Uthvir, and will she suddenly vanish in that case?’

Considering how far in the future she originates from, and how much her presence in the past has very likely changed things – Andruil did not die in her time, for one – then it seems unlikely that any sudden vanishings are to be had.

This is a relief, at least.

Unfortunately, she does not know of any easy ways back to their own time.

“This is working differently,” she says. “The world we came from did not get destroyed, and we did not transform or get any younger, and the whole process felt different, too. I am not even certain we did travel back in time, necessarily. I mean, obviously we travelled back in time, but we might also be in some… nearby dimension. Or similar.”

Thenvunin would like to wake up, really. Any time soon. But he keeps his wits about him, and tries to focus on not losing his head.

“I suppose one way to figure that out would be to see if anything here is different from what he should be,” he offers. “I would be the best equipped to notice that.”

“We can keep an eye out. I am not sure how it might help us get back, but I am certain that having too _much_ information on where we are or how we got here is going to prove less of an impediment than the opposite,” Lavellan reasons.

Alright. They will keep their eyes open. That is… something to do, Thenvunin supposes. After a bit more discussion, he decides that they should head for Arlathan. The city’s populace tends to be diverse enough that a few unexpected faces won’t draw too much notice, and it is, of course, a good place to gather news and information from. Lavellan regards him carefully for a moment, and they debate whether or not it would be more advantageous to have Thenvunin looking like… well, like himself. His other self, who is presumably out there somewhere, doing things and attending duties and living the sort of hollow, uneventful life he’d had before Uthvir sauntered into it with a baby in their arms.

In the end, Lavellan argues that it is probably best if no one suspects them of suspicious or inconsistent behaviour at all. Since Thenvunin cannot recall quite where he might be at this point in time – and such knowledge could prove inaccurate, even if his memory was up to the task – disguises are deemed preferable. Given that he is no Uthvir when it comes to matters of fine physical details, and after some further debate, Thenvunin takes on the second form that is most comfortable to him.

Swans are not the most graceful of creatures when walking on land. It is not terrible, of course, but Thenvunin’s gait is a bit awkward, and his pace slower as he trails his daughter along the winding pathways, and out of the crossroads.

They earn a few stares.

Mostly amused.

It is not terribly common for elves with awkward land forms to keep them whilst walking over roads and such, of course. Thenvunin flies for a while, but that makes it even more difficult to keep pace with Lavellan. It does not improve much once they are actually in the city, though at least there, uncommon sights are less uncommon than elsewhere. And one might suppose Thenvunin is merely dashing between waterways, and has not deigned to change shape, rather than embarking upon an actual trip as a _swan._

He devoutly wishes that he was better at shape-shifting. Even a smaller bird would be preferable. At least then he could ride on Lavellan’s shoulder and be less conspicuous.

At least he looks very lovely whilst he is holding still, though.

As it happens, as well, once they reach the city, they do manage to confirm that they have moved sideways through universes as well as backwards through time. Their first damning inkling comes from the number of people who stare oddly at his daughter. A few bow and greet her as ‘General’, before they double-take, and peer confusedly at her markings. Some then apologize for mistaking her identity. The atmosphere is awkward enough that almost as soon as they arrive in the city, they duck into the shade of one of the public gardens.

“You do not resemble any generals that I am aware of,” Thenvunin notes, rustling his feathers and peering carefully around the garden. A few shimmering banners drift past. There is something just _off_ about the skyline, too, and it takes him a moment to place what – June’s tower, and Sylaise’s palace, are different shapes. The great, looming outlines that cast glittering rainbows and long shadows over the rest of the city are changed. Sylaise’s palace no longer floats like a suspended gem, but instead spirals upwards, like the twisting interior of a seashell. And June’s tower is smaller, and surrounded by several other, outlying buildings which reduce the emphasis placed upon it.

Strange.

“Well apparently in this time, I do,” Lavellan notes. “People keep staring at my markings. I wonder which ones they expect me to have?”

Thenvunin feels a lurch at that prospect. Perhaps in this world, his daughter went back further in her own initial voyage through time? But how far? And who found her?

Not Andruil, he hopes. Or Falon’Din, for that matter.

“Wait here,” he decides.

There is a dining hall not far from the garden they have found. After only a moment’s hesitation, Thenvunin changes back into his elven form, and heads for it. He earns a few glances, himself, but nowhere near the same reaction that his daughter had merited. The hall doesn’t have many of Mythal’s people in it. They are closer to Sylaise’s segment of the city landscape. The hall is decidedly mid-ranking in its crowd, but respectable enough. It would not be too strange for a high-ranking follower of another evanuris to stop there for refreshment, if it were convenient. Thenvunin procures a small drink and some light fare, slipping some away to carry back to Lavellan – she must be famished, poor child, why did he not consider that sooner? – and listening in on the flow of conversation.

Unfortunately, nothing obvious immediately jumps out at him.

Not at first.

“Heard the general has a lookalike running around,” an elf at one of the further tables says, to her companions. “One of Mythal’s.”

“Oh, that figures,” one of her companions replies. “Mythal’s lot do not have much originality to speak of. It would hardly be the first time they _took inspiration_ from us.”

The elf in question is wearing June’s markings. Thenvunin makes a mental note of that, as he carefully heads over.

It is not difficult to muster his affront for the insult he has just overheard.

“Not much originality? That is a rich comment, coming from a servant of June. Are your lot not notorious for your… _unified_ vision?” he asks.

The conversing elves look towards him. The one who had insulted Mythal’s followers is the only one wearing June’s markings. The rest are all branded as Sylaise’s. But they scowl just as hard at Thenvunin, and it feels more as if he has wandered into a crafter’s workshop and immediately insulted every piece hanging on the wall.

…It is possible Thenvunin has done that very thing. Once or twice.

“You know what is rich, is a servant of Mythal trying to defend themselves when one of your people has been walking around the streets wearing the general’s _face,_ ” one of Sylaise’s people quips. “Do you think she figured no one would notice the wrong markings on it? Trying to steal a little bit of greatness by proxy?”

Thenvunin bristles at the insult to his daughter. Even if it might be a fair assessment under ordinary circumstances.

“Or perhaps _you_ might consider that the resemblance is coincidental. The universe does not, in fact, revolve around your _general_ , after all.”

It is possible he puts a bit too much derision in his tone. It is more frustration bleeding out of him, really. Why do they not say this general’s _name?_ He cannot even be certain it is _not_ a coincidence with all this vague talk going around. And how do they manage it? Surely there is more than one general serving their leader in this city. Surely there is more than one serving June – or possibly Sylaise – as individuals!

“That was not a very pleasant tone to take,” a familiar voice drawls, and Thenvunin freezes.

He turns, and any response he might have hoped to make goes flying straight out of his head.

Uthvir is standing behind him.

But… it is not Uthvir.

Or, not quite, rather.

The figure at Thenvunin’s back is… surreal. Bronze markings in June’s pattern scrawl across their face. Their arms are folded, one hip cocked just slightly, and an eyebrow raised. Their golden skin gleams in the setting sunlight as it spills through the hall, and reflects, too, off of the panelled bronze and copper armour they are wearing. A lighter set than any Thenvunin would expect from them, edged only along the shoulders. Their arms are bare but for a few artful strips of cloth. A pair of long daggers are sheathed at their hips, and though the nails they tap against their own bicep are distinctly pointed, their teeth are blunted when they grin.

“Come, now, let us not go disparaging parties who are not even present to defend themselves,” the Not-Uthvir says, _cheerfully_. Not even mockingly so. They stride forward, taking a seat at the table, and then pushing another out pointedly towards Thenvunin. “Neither your ‘lookalike’ nor our fair general are here. And I imagine if they were, at least, the general would be flattered, and her admirer would be admiring.”

The current table occupant who is wearing June’s markings looks at Not-Uthvir, and snaps.

“You are the new Dreaming-born,” they say. “Longevity?”

Not-Uthvir inclines their head.

“I go by Uthvir, if you please.”

After a moment – and still feeling rather dazed – Thenvunin falls into the offered seat beside them. That removes all possibility of it being another lookalike situation on their end, he supposes. Uthvir glances at the small glass which Thenvunin is still holding, and then up at his face.

“That is a humble meal for someone so prettily dressed,” they note. Then they wave one of the hall’s servants over, and after some whispered conversation and a few charming grins from the not-hunter, a pitcher of sparkling amber liquid is deposited onto the middle of the table. Uthvir fills a glass for him, and for themselves, before passing it off to the other occupants.

Thenvunin cannot help but stare at their face. It had taken him quite a long while to adjust to the sight of Mythal’s markings on his own Uthvir; spidery red lines that made the elegant branches look more like bloodied veins. But this change is even odder still. They are not even _red._ Though the bronze shimmer does suit the tone of the not-hunter’s skin quite well, he supposes. It is still a strange difference. And is this why the general who looks like Lavellan can be claimed by one of June’s people? Because Uthvir somehow serves that leader in this world?

Or… no. Because the other servant of June had noted that Uthvir was _new._ And no one, not even Thenvunin’s over-talented daughter, could possibly attain that kind of rank while still being young enough to have been raised by a newly embodied spirit.

Just what is going on?

“Drink up,” Uthvir advises him, grinning. “It is not poisoned. Things are not quite so dire between our groups yet; though, maligning the general is a good way to get onto that track.”

Thenvunin raises his drink, and takes a careful sip. The scent serves at a bit of a warning, but even so, the sweetness of the concoction is nearly as potent as the burn of it. He almost chokes. But that would be unacceptable, he thinks, so he keeps it together, and successfully swallows down his first mouthful before lowering the glass.

The atmosphere around the table shifts a bit.

“Ahhh,” says one of Sylaise’s people. “That lookalike’s probably quite young, I would wager? It is no good to be making fun of children. Puts their minders on the defensive.”

“As it should,” Thenvunin replies. “Young minds need care, not mockery.”

“Is she yours, then?” Uthvir asks him.

An automatic _yes_ nearly flies out of his mouth, before he recalls that there is probably still another Thenvunin in this time, and that – very likely – he does not have a daughter.

Which is a deeply depressing thought.

Still, he cannot bring himself to deny that his own daughter is his, either.

“It is complicated,” he goes with, projecting a firm dissuasion from further inquiries on that subject. It merits a few raised eyebrows, but the occupants around the table do drop the matter, at least. Though he suspects, judging by the looks going around, that the rumour mill might have some interesting turns and twists to debate.

And here is trying to _gain_ information, not give it away.

“I think I should like to meet this lookalike myself,” Uthvir says, musingly. “Just to see how close the resemblance truly is.”

“My cousin used to try and look like her, sometimes,” one of Sylaise’s people offers.

“This is the cousin who serves in a bedroom capacity?” another checks, waggling their eyebrows. The first nods in confirmation.

Thenvunin feels, at once, nauseated and alarmed. That… and if this general looks like _his…_ for…

No.

He stands, all at once.

“I should go. Thank you for the drink,” he says.

Uthvir blinks.

“Oh, come now. You have not even had anything to eat,” he protests.

“I ate before,” Thenvunin replies, with a stiff nod. He left his daughter in a garden. Waiting for him. His daughter, whom low-ranking servants sometimes endeavour to look like, to fill the depraved desires of those who commission them. She is alone. In a garden. Without him.

He turns on his heel and strides off, ignoring further protests. He makes it out of the hall before he hears footsteps rapidly tapping behind him, far lighter than the gait he is accustomed to.

Still, his first instinct upon seeing Uthvir at his elbow is relief.

Then all the _wrongness_ crashes into him, and it vanishes.

“Where are we off to?” Not-Uthvir asks.

Thenvunin hesitates. He does not know this version of his spouse, and yet if anything they seem even less dangerous than the Uthvir he is accustomed to. Or perhaps they are more? Perhaps in this world everything is… backwards, somehow, and so the Uthvir who seems friendly is quite dangerous, just as how the Uthvir who seems dangerous is one of the most reliable people Thenvunin knows?

“I am going to go and see to my daughter,” he says, forgetting himself a moment.

Uthvir raises a brow.

“Your daughter, is it? I thought it was more complicated than that,” they note.

Thenvunin frowns, his brow furrowing in frustration.

“Go away,” he snaps, making up his mind on this whole ‘Other Uthvir’ business. Better not to take chances.

“What did I say? Was that impolite? Forgive me. I _am_ rather new at this, you know,” Uthvir replies, keeping pace with him, and turning beseeching eyes towards him. He is so… _light._ And yet, Thenvunin can see a definite spark of something sharper in there, amidst all the friendly grins and easy steps. Past the blunted white teeth. Those nails are still more like claws than anything else, after all.

He hesitates at the turn that will lead him towards the garden. The longer he delays, the longer he leaves his daughter alone for. But if he goes now, he will lead this Other Uthvir straight to her. But then, perhaps she will be better at dissuading their interest. Thenvunin has always been rather poor at dissuading Uthvirs of any fashion. Unless he does not _wish_ to dissuade them; then somehow he becomes quite capable at it.

After a moment, he turns, and silently makes his way into the garden.

There is someone with his daughter.

He stops cold.

Dread floods through him, momentarily. But then it eases, somewhat, as in the rich evening light, he makes sense of the picture in front of him.

His daughter is where he left her, sitting on a bench beneath the red leaves of a slender-branched tree. Sitting next to her is her near-exact double. And yet, this figure’s countenance is markedly different, too. She is dressed very finely but also very simply, in armour not unlike the sort Uthvir has adorned themselves with. June’s markings are written across her face, and her aura is quiet, but speaks of time and patience and subtlety. The woman who is, quite clearly, his daughter-but-not speaks to Lavellan in moderate tones. The two of them seem simultaneously enthralled with one another, reassured and somehow lost at the same time.

“Well, that _is_ a resemblance,” Uthvir notes.

Thenvunin is quiet; caught up by his relief at finding his daughter unharmed, and compelling fascination with this other figure. So like his child but not.

“Uthvir?” the general notes, surprised. Then her gaze falls to him. “And Thenvunin?”

Lavellan stares at the Other Uthvir for a moment, before looking at him and shaking her head.

“Did you go find…?”

“It was a coincidence,” Thenvunin immediately asserts.

“Wait, wait – so your Papa is _Thenvunin?”_ the general asks, turning towards her younger self. Her lips twitch a bit. “So Uthvir adopted you, and… these two? Truly? That is adorable.”

“What? Adoption?” Uthvir asks, striding forward.

Thenvunin feels a bit lightheaded, for his own part, as he makes his way over to his daughter. She glances up at him, and then moves closer to her other self along the bench, and makes him sit down with her.

“In another lifetime, you rescued me,” the general says to Uthvir, as they settle next to her side of the bench; leaning just against the side of it, and folding their arms across their chest.

“Good of me,” Uthvir replies, though they look a bit more intrigued as they stare at Lavellan, now.

Lavellan returns their interest tenfold.

“I crossed dimensions once,” the general asserts, turning away from the not-hunter to address both himself and his daughter, it seems. She smiles at him reassuringly. “I landed in a world where I had been raised by Dirthamen. It was very interesting. The effects wore off before long, though. But that was thousands of years ago, now. Still. I do recall that it only lasted for a few days. So you might as well wait it out.”

Uthvir points at Lavellan.

“So that is you from another world?” they confirm.

The general and Lavellan both nod.

“So in another world, I raised the general. With…” Uthvir gaze lands upon him again, and this time their assessment takes on a decidedly different tone. Thenvunin shifts a bit, recognizing the particular implications of _that_ look. He feels a brief spark of heat. Reflex, mostly. He is used to his _spouse_ looking at him like that. His actual one, not some bizarre June-serving one.

“Well,” Uthvir says. There is a certain degree of admiration to the tone; but also some surprised warmth. As if they are enchanted by the concept. They glance back at Lavellan, and cannot seem to help smiling. “I get a family?”

“We love you very much,” Lavellan confirms.

Thenvunin clears his throat a bit, as Uthvir’s expression openly softens, unguarded in a way he has never seen in public.

“What about you?” he asks the other version of his daughter, straightening a bit and focusing on her. “Who looked after you?” He cannot help but feel a tremor of worry, even as he must obviously concede that whoever it was probably did a good job. Not even just enough to get her surviving, but to help keep her thriving.

“Haninan and Ireth,” the general tells him, with just the faintest wistful note coming into her tone. “I am June’s sister, as well as his highest ranking follower.”

June’s _sister._

Thenvunin’s mind circles around that notion rather faintly.

That is… certainly more esteem than his own connections could afford her. But as he stares at the general, his daughter reaches over, and closes her hand atop his. Reassuring. He glances towards her, and she smiles at him.

“The general went back thousands of years further than I did,” she explains.

“I wonder who landed the closest to the intended mark,” the general muses.

Thenvunin glances back at Uthvir, to find that the not-hunter is still carefully regarding him. He looks back at the other version of his daughter, then.

“So, you recruited Uthvir from Andruil, then?” he wonders.

The two alternate universe denizens glance at one another.

“Andruil?” Uthvir asks, raising an eyebrow. “Is that who I would have otherwise ended up with?”

“I suppose it makes sense,” the general muses.

They both seem to contemplate that matter for a moment, as Thenvunin glances towards his daughter. She shrugs at him, equally at a loss.

“Remind me to get you something really nice,” the Other Uthvir decides, after a beat. “Some sort of giant basket of gifts, maybe. With musical accompaniment.”

The general snorts.

“Not necessary, Uthvir,” she tells them.

“Yes, but _Andruil._ Andruil is what happens when you grease the slippery slope and then light half of on fire. I cannot possibly imagine that went well for me,” the definitely-not-hunter asserts.

Almost in unison, Thenvunin and Lavellan wince.

Uthvir raises an eyebrow.

“I see it did not.”

“At least I killed her in the end,” Lavellan consoles them.

“Yes, she… wait.” Thenvunin’s thoughts grind to a screeching halt, as his heart plummets into his stomach and his mind goes blank with shock. The words his daughter has just said run through his mind, several times over; as if they are trying to fit themselves into his last, lingering concept of reality, but cannot possibly.

 _I misheard,_ he thinks, desperately.

Lavellan swears.

“I forgot when I told you the big secret that I was still keeping that _other_ big secret,” she groans.

The general just looks amused.

“Of course I killed Andruil,” she murmurs to herself.

“Long live the revolution,” Uthvir says, which sounds… worrying. But Thenvunin does not have time to process the implications of _that_ when he is still on the subject of what his own, actual, not-an-alternate-version-of-herself daughter has apparently done. Once again, his mind drags itself back to that evening after she had taken on her markings, when she had gone out riding for the day and come back with her tale of a slaughtered hare.

A _hare._

He is absolutely blaming Uthvir for that metaphor.

“You _killed Andruil?!”_ he demands, shrilly.

“Oh, as if you would not have done it yourself if you could have gotten away with it,” Lavellan defends.

“How would you even – that was so dangerous – how did – and I cannot _believe_ you lied to me about where you were going, young lady, that is just – and – and what if she had killed _you?!_ This sort of behaviour is absolutely unacceptable! When we get back to our own time we are having a long conversation about just how unacceptable it is!” he exclaims, floundering into the safer territory of ‘scolding parent’, even as he apparently scolds his _tiny baby daughter_ who _kills insanely powerful dragon sorceresses._

“Alright, Papa, if that would make you feel better,” she says, patting his wrist.

“How did you even kill her?!” he demands.

Lavellan shrugs.

“Quickly,” she says.

For some reason, this makes the general chuckle.

“Alright,” she says. “If there are going to be loud familial arguments, I would recommend we adjourn this to somewhere a bit more private. And more accustomed to hosting them.” Standing up from her seat, she ducks a courteous bow towards the two of them. “In light of your circumstances, it would be my great honour to host you both in my private quarters, in my brother’s tower.”

Thenvunin hesitates.

Lavellan does not.

“We gladly accept,” she says, with the politeness of equals. This does not seem to upset her other self, even though, by all accounts, the woman vastly outranks her younger counterpart. Thenvunin feels strangle proud of the both of them, though. Of seeing the gentleness in his own child persist in her across centuries, and despite achieving a near-incomparable degree of influence and authority.

Even though he cannot claim much responsibility for her quality of character in this world. Still. His daughter is a good person.

“I believe I shall come along, too,” Uthvir says, pushing away from the bench. “In absence of my alternate universe counterpart, I feel it is my duty to serve in their stead, and look after you two.”

“Good of you,” the general says.

“Utterly selfless. Has nothing at all to do with seeing if a substantially younger version of yourself might be used to embarrass you. Nor with the absolutely gorgeous specimen who is apparently willing to raise children with me, under the right circumstances,” Uthvir agrees.

“In our world, you are married,” Lavellan informs them.

Thenvunin feels a little lurch in his chest at the admission, though he is not quite certain why.

Uthvir actually stops, stock still, in shock. The playfulness falls from their expression. For an instant they openly gape at Thenvunin, as they blink, and their mouth opens and closes a few times. The general seems quite pleased with this information, though her gaze upon Uthvir softens some, as they clear their throat and regain their composure. All at once, then, it seems they have gone from blatantly assessing Thenvunin, to being incapable of looking directly at him.

“Oh,” they say.

“That is lovely,” the general decides. “I am certain you two will have more to discuss about it. But at the tower, I think.”

Lavellan nods, then.

And this is how Thenvunin finds himself spending the evening in June’s tower, in another time, in another world.

And with another Uthvir.

~

June’s tower is not a locale which Thenvunin has ever made it a point to frequent. But he has spent enough time there, even so, to know that this version is markedly more pleasant. It is easier to access, at least on some more basic levels, and the more modest buildings arrayed around it seem to be a hub of activity. He spies a version of Desire walking the stretch of ground between two of the outbuildings, a pair of bright spirits winding in her wake, and June’s markings on her face. He sees Lathiras, still alive and peering curiously towards their procession, as his daughter keeps up the hood on the cloak which the general had loaned her.

It makes him wonder just how many of the people he knows have been scooped up by this version of his daughter. And why. How many more situations are there, he wonders, like Uthvir’s with Andruil’s? Every familiar face he sees amidst this much-changed part of the city fills him with an odd sense of worry for his own time. His own world.

And then he thinks of his daughter killing Andruil, and he does not know what to make of anything anymore.

The general is very courteous, and does not seem to mind waiting whenever some stray oddity catches his attention, or Lavellan’s. The corridors they pass through in the deeper reaches of the tower become more ‘familiar’, in the sense that they fit better with what Thenvunin has come to expect of such a place. She leads them through shifting passageways and inscrutable exits, and it occurs to him that if she had ill intent, she would have them quite thoroughly trapped here. But even despite the obvious differences, she is so much like his daughter that he cannot conceive of her as malevolent.

So much like his daughter.

Who killed Andruil.

The general affords them a section of guest rooms in what is, apparently, her own personal section of the tower. Thenvunin waits until they are alone before striding over and taking his daughter by the shoulders.

“What were you _thinking?”_ he demands. “You could have been killed! She could have killed you!”

Before she can respond, then, he crushes her to him.

There is a brief moments as she simply stands, tense in his arms.

Then she sags into him again.

“I knew what she was going to do. What she had done. How could I let her?” she counters.

Thenvunin does not know how to answer that. All he knows for certain is that it is terrifying to contemplate. No matter how he attempts to picture it, no matter what the outcome most obviously was, in his mind, he can only think that she should be dead. That the great jaws of a dragon should have closed around her, and torn her to pieces. He thinks that even if he had seen her manage this feat with his own two eyes, some part of him would fail to believe it.

“You could have been _killed,_ ” he repeats.

Lavellan pats him.

“Why did you not come to me?” he wonders. Is he truly that inept? That pathetic?

Her hold on him tightens. But then he remembers her remark, immediately after her ceremony. Remembers her asking – seemingly in a fit of futile anger – _want to help me kill Andruil, Papa?_

His chest clenches.

She _had_ come to him. And he had failed her. He had not taken her seriously enough. He had been blind again.

“Stop that!” Lavellan admonishes, pulling back and looking him in the eye. “I can practically hear you ripping yourself apart from the inside. It is terrible. You listen to me, now. I can kill things. I have killed things, obviously. There is no great accomplishment to it. Not like how Andruil thought there was. In my time, on a bad day, stepping on a rusted nail could do a person in. Sometimes people would breathe the wrong air and they would get sick, and one night they would go to sleep and the next morning they would not wake up. But protecting someone, that is an accomplishment worth taking a chance for. You have protected me for thirty years. And here I am, and you have taken someone who was miserable and vulnerable and torn up with grief, and you have made me _happy._ That is a great thing to have done, Papa. That means more to me I could ever possibly describe. So I killed Andruil. For Nanae, and for you. And in the end it was not much of a thing to do. Not compared to all you have done for me.”

Thenvunin stares at her.

“But _I_ am supposed to fight the monsters for _you,”_ he finds himself saying, lost and quiet.

She shakes her head, ruefully.

“There are a lot of ways to help,” she says. Then she laughs a little. “And anyway. Now that you know, maybe you can help me fight the next monster.”

He lets out a long breath.

“Why do I get the feeling you are humouring me?” he wonders. There is still an awful clenching in his chest.

But, he supposes… even if he cannot quite reconcile it, perhaps it is reassuring, in a way, to know that his daughter is apparently a terrifying combatant. Come to it. She alone survived the wreckage of the future she came to him from. She outlived the end of the world. He probably does not need to worry quite so much over her safety on hunts anymore. Though he still will, of course.

“I love you, Papa. I really do,” his daughter tells him, seriously.

He kisses her brow.

“I know,” he promises. “I love you too, my little heart.”

They speak for quite some time, then, on matters pertinent to important political figures, and there assassinations, and open communication between family members. Which, admittedly, is perhaps not an atmosphere he has done his best to cultivate in the past.

By the time his daughter confesses her exhaustion, it is quite late. Thenvunin retires to the chambers he has been afforded, and finds they have been furnished with modest – but acceptable – nightwear, roughly within his size, and as many comforts as could be expected of an impersonal guest chamber. He is going over most of it, peeling off his outer layers to change, when there is a tap on his door.

He opens it expecting to find his daughter on the other side. Perhaps having discovered some unexpected difficulty with her own room.

Instead, he is greeted with the sight of the Other Uthvir.

There is one jarring moment where his first reflexive instinct is to open the door wider, and let Uthvir into his rooms. And then his mind catches up with his hand, and he recalls that, no, this is not his spouse, and they are a strange twist upon that image besides, and then _that_ makes him think of his wedding day, when Uthvir had approached the dais in finery the likes of which Thenvunin had never seen them in before (or since), and that is a very odd mindset to be in. He wonders what Uthvir is doing now. In the future. Of another world. If time is passing at all there, or if they will simply return to the precise moment they left from.

What ends up happening amounts to the air around him convulsing oddly, and his arm giving the door an odd little swish.

The Other Uthvir is looking at him.

“You married me?” they ask.

Their tone is careful, but intent. Thenvunin pauses, and considers. This version of Uthvir seems more… sociable than his own. And never, it seems, had to contend with Andruil’s interests. But apparently some troubles do not require sadistic huntresses to manifest, if the faint traces of disbelief in their countenance are any indication.

He opens the door wider, and invites them in.

“Yes,” he says, as they take a seat. He nearly goes back to changing before he recalls – not _really_ Uthvir. Probably not someone he should strip down in front of.

“So you know about…? And you still married me?” Uthvir asks him.

Thenvunin has no idea what, in particular, they are referring to. But there is a note in their voice that he cannot bring himself to turn away from. Whatever it is, anyway, the truth is that he married Uthvir. And despite his hunter’s dire warnings and grim portents, and the rushed, somewhat unideal nature of the proceedings, he has never been given cause to regret the decision.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

“Obviously,” is what he says, taking stock of his own partially dressed state. He is not indecent, at least, but this is hardly attire fit for conversing in. He finds a suitable robe inside of the room’s closet door, though, and slips it on, and that settles things a bit more.

Uthvir’s gaze travels up his figure against, as he takes a seat across from them. It sparks another reflexive bolt of interest in him.

 _Lustful,_ he thinks. He is mature enough, these days, to admit that he is not entirely certain which of them he is chiding, though.

Uthvir swallows, and their gaze flits up to his own.

“Do you think there is a chance that your other self, in this world, could ever love _me_ that way?” they wonder.

Thenvunin hesitates.

“I do not know my other self,” he admits. “I do not even know you all that well, come to it. But ultimately I might be more concerned for you part in it. I am not an easy man to love.”

Uthvir blinks.

And then they laugh. They shake their head a bit.

“And is my other self _easy_ to love, then?” they wonder. “I have been called charming often enough, but there is a vast difference between the sort of person someone is willing to spend an evening with, and the sort they are willing to spend an eternity with. I did not imagine anyone, in any lifetime, would ever care to bridge that gulf for _me.”_

“Do not be ridiculous,” Thenvunin finds himself saying. “You are, by turns, incredibly trying, stubborn, salacious, and insufferable, but you are also perfectly fit to be loved. Should I live to see the end of existence itself, I would by far rather face it side by side with you than with someone more manageable and less wondrous.”

Uthvir looks astounded.

Thenvunin clears his throat.

The air around the not-hunter colours with a twisting tempest of emotions, bleeding through shock and delight and fear and bewilderment, and desire. They swallow again, and shift in their seat; and their gaze, when it locks with Thenvunin’s own again, is burning.

And sparkling, just a bit, with some excessive moisture, it seems.

He clears his throat again, and diverts his gaze.

“Though obviously I cannot speak for any other version of myself.”

There is a long, awkward pause. None of Thenvunin’s etiquette instructors had ever covered this particular convergence of connection and distance in their hypothetical scenarios when he was younger. Neither did any of his subsequent experiences in life lend much insight towards how to improvise. He finds himself wishing, very much right then, that things were simpler. But if they were simpler, he supposes, then his life would also be very different.

And he wants to get back to that life enough to know that he probably does not want it to be. Not by much, anyway. Perhaps less horrible in the unseen goings on. But not too different, not really; not if it might cost him the people in it.

There is a shifting sound. Light steps. He glances over, and then up to find that Uthvir has risen from their seat, and is staring down at him. One of their hands reaches towards him, and then stalls.

“May I kiss you?” they ask.

Thenvunin’s breath halts a moment. He blinks up at them.

“It is… it would not be the same,” he says. And it feels like a warning.

Uthvir’s lips twist, wryly.

“I know,” they admit. “You have your spouse to get back to, and your world to get back to. The way the general tells it, you might vanish tomorrow. I am not your Uthvir. But it is such a… novel idea. To have someone who loves me so. Even another version of me. And you are very, very beautiful. So I would like to kiss you, if you are amenable to it.”

They move closer.

Just a bit.

Thenvunin’s mouth is dry. And he thinks of all the games he has ever played with Uthvir, of selves and other-selves, illusions and badly disguised truths, leaking out through the seams. He wonders, if he and Lavellan ended up stranded here, if he might love this version of his spouse just as much. But then he thinks of his own Uthvir, left behind in a world without them, and he can hardly stand the thought.

He thinks of _this_ Uthvir, and his own persistent and long-lived foolishness. There will be no foundling child to tie them together in this world. She is already grown up, and accomplished besides.

He thinks of Uthvir being alone.

Tilting his head up, he kisses them.

It is not much different from kissing his own, really. This Uthvir stalls, as well, surprised by the gesture before they respond. His hunter does that less now, but he can still catch them off-guard at times. Then they respond, sinking into the kiss. They cup his face, gentle and just a little hesitant. They are young, he recalls. Uthvir is always young, though it is easy to forget, but in this case they are _especially_ young. It makes him wonder how many lips they have kissed before. How many beds they have graced.

The concepts of ‘Uthvir’ and ‘sexual inexperience’ do not marry well in his mind. And not even in a lighthearted way. Thenvunin is all too aware, now, of how darkly some of his heart’s experience has been gained.

But perhaps… not in this life?

He is not quite certain what he is thinking when his closes his hands across Uthvir’s hips, and pulls them into his lap. Except that he wants them closer. Wants them safe, and with him; regardless of the details right now. They come to him easily, kissing him more thoroughly, dragging their fingers through his hair as his blood runs hot, and their thighs spread to frame his in his chair. He bucks upwards, just a bit, and they grind into him; blunt teeth catching his lip, and sharp nails trailing across his scalp.

The kiss breaks.

Uthvir draws in a ragged breath, and Thenvunin licks his lips.

“Thank you for the kiss,” Uthvir whispers, tilting into him. “I would really like to have sex with you, too. Just as an idle point of interest.”

Thenvunin sighs.

“Or maybe you could just tell me how you like it,” Uthvir suggests, which is entirely inappropriate, but of course it is, and does absolutely nothing to reduce the charge in the air. Or the growing pressure in his groin, rising up to greet them. The not-hunter leans towards his ear, and whispers. “Tell me what we do. What you like doing. Then I will know what _he_ likes. Give me a little advantage, here.”

He almost laughs.

Oh, if only he were ever that straight-forward.

But then he lets out another sigh, and lets himself grind against their hips a bit more.

“I like to be taken,” he whispers back. “And I _hate_ to admit it.”

Uthvir chuckles.

“Really?” they ask, pulling back to look him in the eye.

“Really, truly, and beyond easy repair,” he admits, ruefully. “But not without exception.”

After all, he thinks. This Uthvir is, regardless of their actual level of experience, _less_ experienced than his own. And almost assuredly less experienced than him – perhaps exceptionally so, given the… frequency with which he and Uthvir have taken to coupling, of late. The responsible thing to do is to take charge of the situation, he supposes.

Which is not entirely unappealing, as it goes.

“Let me show you,” he suggests. “It could help. Provided your Thenvunin is enough like me.”

Uthvir’s eyes light up at the prospect, and they grind into him again.

“Show me,” they agree.

Somewhere, Thenvunin thinks, that other version of himself just felt a deep sense of mingled foreboding and anticipation trickle down his spine. Hesitancy and unease affect even himself for a moment. But he consoles himself with the knowledge that anything he tells this Uthvir will hold little to no repercussions for himself once he is safely back in his own time.

They will be that other Thenvunin’s problem.

It likely says something deeply complex about his psychology that he is somewhat thrilled to thoroughly ruin all of the pretences a past version of himself might still be desperately cleaving to.

He is, in fact, uncommonly eager as he coaxes Uthvir back off of him again, and takes them to bed. He finds a jar of suitable lotion in one of the bathroom cabinets, and has them strip, and spread out onto the sheets on their stomach. He ties their hands, and whispers explanations as he goes.

“The more you constrain him, the less he will have to worry about his limbs,” he explains. “He is focused excessively on appearances. He will try and maintain as much dignity as he can – yes, even given the circumstances. He will try and avoid moving around or expressing himself in undignified fashions. The more options you take from him, the less stressful it will be. He will not have to focus on keeping his hands in place when he has no chance of moving them.”

Uthvir does not grin, nor jab, nor even quip. In point of fact, they only nod, accepting.

“He finds sex degrading,” they surmise.

Thenvunin pauses, and runs a hand carefully across the knots he has tied.

“Yes,” he admits. Once upon a time he would have insisted that was because it _was_ degrading. Unless, of course, it was being performed by equals, in some respectably detached position, with both parties maintaining proper appearances, and never making much noise or producing any embarrassing displays throughout.

“He also enjoys many things he considers degrading, though. So it is a bit difficult. Especially to admit.” Even now, his chest twists, as he trails a hand down Uthvir’s back. There are scars here, too, he is surprised to see. But far, _far_ fewer, and smaller. Still, he does not let his touch linger on them before drawing it downwards and away.

He does not ordinarily enjoy having others in this fashion. He can admit that, now. But this is an exception, he finds, as he opens the bottle of lotion, and sets about loosening taught flesh, and sinking his fingers into both of the openings which Uthvir has offered up.

“Behaviour he finds inappropriate will stoke his fires most ably,” he admits, biting his lip as he slips his thumb past the tight ring of their muscles, and his erection throbs. They gasp, unabashedly, and curl their hands around the ropes binding them. “A few bites will not go amiss. Tearing his clothes off will make him strenuously object, and also deeply arouse him. Compliments and praise will work very well. The filthier the better. He will object to them, of course, because they are entirely inappropriate.”

Uthvir chuckles.

“Filthy praise is inappropriate in the midst of filthy activities?” they wonder. “When _is_ it ‘appropriate’, then?”

Thenvunin sniffs, perhaps just a bit exaggeratedly.

“Never,” he asserts.

Another chuckle.

“Give me some examples,” Uthvir suggests.

It takes Thenvunin some doing to come up with a few. Not that he lacks admiring – or even, admittedly, filthy – thoughts, but where Uthvir can seem to rattle off a stream of salacious commentary at the drop of a hat, never once missing a beat, it takes far more effort for him to manage anything. Still. He curls his fingers, as the slickness coating his hands increases, and does his best.

“You look so beautiful, stretched open on my hand,” he says. “Those sounds you make are exquisite. I want to fuck a thousand more of them out of you. I am going to take you until you are screaming my name. That sort of a thing.”

When Uthvir laughs, this time, it is a bit breathier, as they try and take his fingers deeper.

“’That sort of a thing’. I see. Thank you for pointing me in the right vicinity,” they say.

He huffs, just a bit.

“Yes, well. _You_ are the one who is apt to make promises you cannot keep, you know. ‘I will never stop fucking you’, you might say. And then two minutes later, you are stopping, of course, to make certain I am alright and that I am not biting back sounds of pain instead of pleasure.” It had taken him some doing to realize that there were multiple facets to Uthvir’s interest in their partner’s vocal activity during sex.

“How inconsiderate of me,” Uthvir quips. Though the dryness of their tone is somewhat undermined by the hitched breath that falls out of them, as Thenvunin gets another finger into the opening he has settled upon. He is less skilled at this than Uthvir is; best to go with the easier passage, so to speak. And for the sake of demonstration, it will be easier to set a pace that would… suit himself, with less concern that he might cause injury.

“I suppose I should also mention that longevity is something I struggle with. Though I have recently gotten better at it,” he admits, adding more of the lotion, which is not quite as good at its job as the expensive oils he usually has at hand.

“Oh, I like that,” Uthvir admits, to his surprise. “There are all  _kinds_ of interesting things you can do with someone who comes in a hurry. And then again, while you are working them back up. Though it is not as if the – ah – the opposite is bad, either.”

He flushes, just a bit, and is suddenly quite glad that from his angle, Uthvir cannot see him.

That is…

He did not know that.

Although it is possible his own Uthvir does not share that opinion. But thinking on it… they do seem to enjoy making him…

Well.

“I also do not care much for using my mouth,” he admits, curling his fingers, and using his other hand to try and stimulate certain neglected parts in these proceedings. Not that anything seems to lack much in the way of stimulation, at the moment.

Uthvir moans.

“Do… ah, do you mind… having mouth on you?” they coherently ask, afterwards.

He swallows, twisting his fingers with deliberate care.

“No,” he says. “I quite enjoy that.”

They are ready, he thinks.

It is not quite so enthralling, really, as being on the other side of this equation. But there is still something to be said for it. For pushing his way into them. Carefully making himself at home in their warmth, as they lie beneath him, and take him in. For the novelty of being able to drape himself across their back – even if he needs to prop himself up from it to really _move_ – and have them like this.

He sets a pace that he himself would quite like.

Uthvir… does not object to it.

They make their approval fairly clear, in fact, as he thrusts into them, the bed creaking and his nerves firing at the heat of their inner walls. It does not take him long, this time, for all that he _has_ been improving in that regard. He slides in and out of them, growing more and more ragged, until he finally stiffens and comes inside of them.

He lets out a fractured breath.

After a few moments, Uthvir nudges their hips up against him.

“Untie me,” they request.

It takes him a moment to regain enough composure to manage that. But at length, he does, and moves to accommodate as swiftly as he is able to; not quite certain why they want to be untied so immediately, but he knows, at least, that the important thing is to get the ropes loosened.

He barely manages it before they are upon him, dragging him into the bed and pinning him to the mattress beneath them. They kiss him, their tongue delving into him, their nails sharp at his wrists. Their legs catch one of his between their thighs, and they grind against it.

When they pull back, they give him a long look; and then a smirk.

“Thank you for that informative demonstration,” they say. “Now, I do think it would be best of me to make certain I have gotten the right idea. A few practice rounds, perhaps?”

 _Ah,_ Thenvunin thinks, as his whole body burns, and Uthvir’s tongue finds its way into his mouth again.

_Still Uthvir, then._

He feels a wry curl of fond amusement, in among the other sentiments.

And to think. He had almost taken them for someone else.

 

~

 

Epilogue:

 

Uthvir is beginning to become concerned.

Their rooms in Mythal’s palace are empty. No sign of Thenvunin, or Lavellan. That in itself is not particularly surprising, even as it gets somewhat later in the day. But the last person to have seen them - Tarensa - claims they were in the palace vault. Likely, Thenvunin was retrieving or returning some treasure or other for his lady.

The vault is not an easy place to come and go from without attracting attention, though. Uthvir checks it themselves, with an accompanying guard, and finds it utterly empty. No one recalls seeing Thenvunin or Lavellan leave, and it does not seem that they are still in the palace.

They can think of no particular dangers to be concerned over at the moment. But as the sky darkens and no one else returns home, Uthvir’s unease begins to grow. They find some tracks from Lavellan leading off of the palace grounds, but they are old. Likely from several days ago. They check the rooftops and a few of the less-accessible gardens, and confirm the locations of some of Mythal’s more… dubious followers, but nothing presents itself.

They are considering heading to the city, to see if they might get any insights from the estate, when the door finally opens and some of the growing fear in them abates.

Thenvunin and Lavellan return.

They let out a little breath.

“Where have you two been?” they ask, raising an eyebrow. Lavellan, they note, is armed to the _teeth_ ; and they do not recognize the blade Thenvunin is carrying, either. Or his outfit, but given how many the man accumulates, that’s not too strange.

“Nanae!” Lavellan says, and rushes over to hug them.

That is… slightly atypical of her, in terms of eagerness.

Uthvir holds her back, and frowns.

“What happened?” they wonder.

Then they pause, again, as Thenvunin strides over and gets his arms around both Lavellan and themselves; settling his grip across their shoulders, and pulling them both to himself. Uthvir’s worry makes a strong return appearance, but Thenvunin is smiling a bit as he kisses their temple.

“Did you two murder someone?” Uthvir wonders. If they have to help destroy evidence, it will be good to know as soon as possible.

Thenvunin frowns a bit, at that, and looks at Lavellan.

“We have several matters to discuss,” he admits.

Lavellan sighs.

Well. That… seems ominously like a ‘yes’.

Uthvir will destroy however much evidence and hide however many bodies it takes, though. After all.

This is their family.


	24. Iron Bull

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some explanation (because the rest of this is all so straight-forward...). Discussions on my tumblr led to the possibility of other Dragon Age party members/characters ending up in Elvhenan, and of course, travelling there in the same style which Lavellan employed. Subsequent speculations led to questions of what the Lavellan in this AU would do if suddenly saddled with a de-aged companion, and a random lottery I played selected Bull to be our guinea pig.
> 
> And here we are!

Bull’s a really cute baby.

She’ll give him that.

It takes her a shocked moment to recover from the brief sight of him tumbling out of the portal and almost landing in the nearby lake, enduring the same awkward transformation she herself had once gone through. For a solid, stunned moment, she stares at the tiny grey baby with his nubby horns and wide, equally stunned eyes. Lying in the mud just shy of the lake’s rippling waters.

Then she recovers her senses and dashes forward, pulling him up into her arms as he continues to stare at her with – two – eyes the size of saucers. He’s chubby and heavier than she expects, but still fresh and tiny looking.

“Oh shit,” she says to him.

One of his arms flails, and he smacks her. She’s not sure if that’s meant to be a rebuke or if he’s just too confused to be coordinated. Maybe both. The air around him is pretty heavily coloured by his misery, panic, and confusion. It’s pretty loud, in fact. Loud enough that she’s not too surprised when Uthvir abruptly dashes out between the trees a little further up the lake, looking sharp and concerned.

They’re on a hunt, after all. Well. A scouting mission, more like, but those often serve a double purpose as hunts. Though Lavellan also pays keen attention to the scouting matters, too. Likely Uthvir assumed the projected misery was her own. But when they see her standing there, with a tiny, strange infant in her arms, they come up short for a solid minute.

There’s another staring match.

Slowly, Uthvir raises a hand, and points at the baby.

“What?” they ask.

“I found him by the lake,” she replies.

Uthvir heads swiftly over, then, expression caught between wariness and concern. Bull’s naked in her arms, his misery teetering perilously close to the breaking edge. She’s not too surprised when he starts crying; although, like her, he’s pretty quiet about it. She tries to shift him into a more comfortable position, as Uthvir’s gaze takes in all the strange little details about him. She’s not even sure where to _begin_ explaining.

“That is a baby,” her nanae says. Before she can reply, then, they cast their gaze towards the sky, and press a hand to their forehead. “Why are babies appearing in the wilderness? Why do people I know keep finding them?” they demand.

Fortunately, they don’t seem to expect her to answer that. Instead they pull off their gauntlets, and hold out their hands.

“Give him to me,” they say.

Bull curls a tiny fist against her, radiating fear.

“Just for a minute,” she says. She’s talking to Bull more than to Uthvir, but it gets Uthvir raising a brow at her, as she carefully hands them her entirely unexpected discovery. If anyone from her time were to have managed to come back, she would have thought it might be Dorian. Or one of the other mages who had shown some skill with temporal magic.

But then she thinks of Solas, sending her back in his place. And she supposes if Dorian could only send one person…

Well.

At some point, perhaps Bull can tell her himself.

In the meanwhile, she gets some of the light armour she’s wearing off, and makes herself a little bit softer and more baby-accommodating. Uthvir wraps Bull up in their cloak, while he stares at them with wide, uncertain eyes. The fear increases exponentially, until Uthvir hands him back to her. Then it eases, just a little.

It eases a bit more when Uthvir regards him for a moment, and then reaches out – claws retracted – and brushes a hand over his head. Gently running their fingers over the nubs of his horns.

Then they lower their hand, and sigh.

“Damn,” they say.

~

Lavellan gives serious thought to just taking Bull and fleeing, to be honest.

Not that she _wants_ to flee. She’s pretty sure Uthvir would track her down, and Thenvunin would be incredibly upset over the whole thing, and it’d probably make her look like she’d had an illegal baby and turned fugitive or something equally disastrous. But still. When they finally get back to civilization, the fuss and stir and trouble over Bull’s discovery is immense. Two babies found in such odd circumstances so ‘soon’ after one another draws a lot of speculation.

There are tests done to firmly establish that neither Lavellan nor Uthvir has gone and somehow snuck a pregnancy past anyone, and Lavellan gives serious consideration _again_ to the ‘just take him and flee’ plan when it comes out that Bull has weird blood. And of course, the grey skin and tiny horns, while not totally absurd in the context of grown, shape-shifting elves, are really unlikely on an infant. But by then the whole matter is a giant storm of controversy. Doubly so when she digs in her heels and tries to argue that since she found him, she should look after him.

Bull, at least, helps her out on that front by freaking out – a lot – whenever anyone else tries to hold him.

Uthvir looks at her like they are sincerely concerned that she’s inherited some bad influences from Thenvunin’s ardent parenting style.

And her papa, of course, manages to at once lose his mind over the entire concept of Lavellan – who is so young and small and young herself, naturally – looking after a baby. It takes a good couple of hours for herself and Uthvir to convince him that Pride didn’t somehow manage to secretively knock her up and that she did not, in fact, flee to the woods under the guise of a scouting expedition so that she could somehow have their illegal grey dragon baby.

Bull has a hard time being frightened of Thenvunin.

The level of ‘over doing it’ he packs into nearly everything kind of has that effect.

But in the end, at least, there aren’t many places for the controversy to go. Mythal decides she would like to ‘keep the child close’, and so Lavellan keeps ‘grab him and flee’ on the shelf in case it should be needed later. And a compromise is reached in the form of awarding Thenvunin and Uthvir the privilege of raising yet another mysterious foundling.

Well.

They did do a good job with the last one. And it keeps Bull close to her, too, so it’s probably the best they can hope for, all things considered.

Bull stares up at her from the soft blankets of his crib with a wide expression that adequately manages to convey the perpetual ‘what the fuck?!’ state he’s been in ever since she found him.

“Yeah,” she says, quietly, in common. “It’s weird. I know. You’re just gonna kind of have to… outgrow it.”

Bull looks her up and down, and the tone of his inquiry somewhat shifts towards ‘holy shit, is that what _you_ did?!’

“Yes, I outgrew it,” she admits. “Kind of a long while ago, now. Welcome to Elvhenan, Bull. You’re an immortal mage now.”

She doesn’t really blame him when he bursts into tears.

~

For a while, Bull’s elvhen name is ‘Da’dorflen’, which is… not ideal. Fortunately, Thenvunin is not about to let the world keep calling his new son ‘little grey baby’, and so the naming debates begin. Lavellan’s attempts at transcribing ‘Iron Bull’ into something her parents might be willing to use are… not the most successful. Even Uthvir looks at her a bit oddly at some of her attempts. And Bull’s no help on this front, as he’s still mostly caught up in his internal battlefields and keeps having tiny little panic attacks that make the atmosphere tricky to navigate, at times.

“Irenan’Bel,” she suggests.

“He is not loud,” Uthvir counters, raising an eyebrow.

“He will get to be,” she promises, as the subject of their debate naps in Thenvunin’s lap; tiny fists caught in the soft strands of his hair. He wakes up every so often to panic, which gets Thenvunin shushing him and comforting him; or sometimes handing him over to Lavellan, who is currently his favourite. Uthvir is his least favourite. They’ve been trying to pretend that this doesn’t bother them, and that their subsequent… softening of their usual look around him is coincidental.

“What about Sulahn’nehneth?” Thenvunin suggests.

“No,” she vetoes. For pity’s sake, Papa.

“Halamnumin,” he attempts. “Or Thenerassamahl.”

“Midorf,” Uthvir throws in. “Suvmi.”

“Stop trying to name babies after weapons!” Thenvunin huffs at them.

Bull’s eyes flutter open, then, and he is immediately disturbed and loudly projecting it. She thinks he has more emotional presence than anyone else in the room, really. Thenvunin soothes him and Bull looks simultaneously embarrassed about it, but also genuinely quite comforted.

Which, at least, is a conflict her papa seems to innately understand.

“Irenan,” Uthvir muses, once the storm has calmed a bit. “You may have something with that. He might not cry out much, but he certainly has a loud voice, in his way.”

Thenvunin is quiet for a moment. Considering, as he looks down at baby Bull.

“I suppose it will be easy to call after him, if we keep it simple,” he muses.

Lavellan’s pretty sure that, under the circumstances, this is the best she’s going to manage for him.

“Irenan, then,” she agrees.

~

As it happens, when he’s not freaking out, Bull’s a pretty good sport.

Thenvunin, of course, is no more reluctant to dress his son in all manner of ridiculous clothing than he had been his daughter. Trying to reconcile the mental image of a fully grown Bull with that many ruffles is a bit of a challenge to her imagination, but the effect is decidedly different on a tiny baby. As Bull slowly but surely gets more vocal and mobile, he starts sprouting little black curls in among his nubby horns, and calling out in sharp barks and cries that emphatically convey his intent, if not a specific range of sounds. He gets good at making his objections known in a hurry.

But he doesn’t put up much fuss over dress-up.

Thenvunin covers him in bright jewel-toned frills and soft, fluffy layers, and little hats that keep his horns from drawing too much attention.

One afternoon, Lavellan watches Thenvunin get Bull into more turquoise fabric than should seem necessary for something that small, and sees Uthvir lurking by the doorway. Staring at Bull, as Bull stares at Uthvir, but a thoughtful little glower on his chubby little face.

Bull’s good at reading people, she knows. Though sometimes she suspects he’s better at reading them than reacting to them. And the end of the world is pretty hard to take, and waking up subsequently to find a magic-riddled world full of people who can do things that you’ve spent a lifetime being kind of afraid of isn’t easy.

But still. Bull’s good at reading people.

“Okay,” he mutters in common, and nods to himself.

Thenvunin chuckles at him.

“Chatty today,” he notes.

But that evening, on a hunch, she suggests that Uthvir feed him. And while Bull isn’t exactly as comfortable with that arrangement as he is with her or Thenvunin, he also doesn’t protest as Uthvir picks him up. He doesn’t get scared. The two of them regard one another with the same quality of careful assessment, and slowly dissipating wariness as they interact.

After that, matters seem to get onto a better track.

Bull picks up on elven pretty quick; although around her he still sometimes slips into common, or even qunlat. It makes her regret not knowing more of his language. He – unsurprisingly – shies away from the more excessive displays of magic or well-trafficked areas, but no one thinks that’s particularly strange, since she used to be like when she was smaller, too. If anything, her parents actually seem prepared for it, this time, and both of them are quick to catch it when it seems like the wrong toy or room or display is bothering Bull.

The nursery is a nest of soft places and simply toys. Garden windows that Bull can look out through, and watch the birds and plants from, and remind Lavellan of when she was small and lost and frustrated, and the world seemed so big, and its problems like more than she could solve.

One sunny afternoon she’s watching Bull watch the birds, when he starts to cry.

Big, quiet tears, at first. They spill out of his eyes and leave little dark circles on the edges of his bright pink skirt. His hands press against the glass windows leading out. Lavellan watches him for a minute, and then scoops him up. She doesn’t say anything as she carries him out into the garden. She snags a chair from the little table set, and drags it over to where the plants are thickest. Where the brightly-coloured birds like to congregate amidst the blooming vines that trail up the walls, and the trees droop and sway, long willow branches brushing against their cheeks as delicate butterflies drift up from the foliage.

He grips her shirt and curls into her as she sits with him. As his quiet tears turn into broken, fully-fledged sobs. As his grip on her shifts and he makes tiny fists and strikes at her unresisting form, hard enough to leave a few tiny round bruises. As he gives that up and clutches her again, crying and crying until the sun’s low on the horizon, and he falls asleep with his face buried against her stomach, and stray flower petals caught in his curls.

“I know,” she tells him, softly.

_I am sorry._

~

When Bull starts to grow, he starts to _grow._

As he stretches from adorably chubby toddler to awkward-yet-equally-chubby child, he goes from wearing every layer that Thenvunin cares to pile onto him and playing the part of compliant dress-up-doll, to refusing to wear hardly anything at all. It’s a stubborn phase that amuses Uthvir to no end, and drives Thenvunin up the wall. 

When Lavellan’s ability to communicate had improved way-back-when, it had opened the door for more compromises.

With Bull, it opens the door to stubbornness, it seems.

“No shirt. My nipples get hot,” Bull insists, with a casually dismissive air, as he makes his way towards the door of his room while Thenvunin does his level best to wrangle him into something other than a bright orange skirt.

The skirts are really more of a compromise, too. Elvhen fashion doesn’t really tailor pants as loose as Bull likes.

“A loose shirt,” Thenvunin tries. “You have lessons with your reading instructor today, you have to wear actual clothes for them.”

“Nah,” Bull says, marching steadily towards his goal.

Well.

Until Thenvunin reaches over and picks him up.

Then he gets surly, because he’s still not big on people being able to manhandle him that way. The ensuing battle over a loose orange shirt that Thenvunin tries to wrangle him into is fraught, as Bull refuses to move his limbs in a cooperative fashion to let Thenvunin put it on him, and Thenvunin refuses to let Bull leave the room without wearing ‘at least two articles of clothing’.

Somehow this translates into Bull running around for the day in his skirt and a bright pink hat.

Thenvunin watches him like he’s trying to figure out where he went wrong.

Lavellan comes up beside him, and offers him a consoling pat on the shoulder.

“He used to be so well-behaved,” her papa bemoans.

“Too good to last,” she concludes, as he lets out a long and resigned sigh.

~

Bull is a contradiction of traits, in Elvhenan.

He hates to learn magic. When he’s small it’s not much of an issue, but as he gets bigger, his spells start to come in undisciplined outbursts and fits that he does an exceedingly bad job of controlling. Lavellan does her best to get through to him. But in the end it’s Uthvir who takes an ‘eight-year-old’ Bull out to one of the practice fields one morning, and brings him back a little subdued, and thoughtful, and more malleable on the subject of spells.

Uthvir takes over Bull’s magical education, and all three of them help teach him his combat skills – or re-teach him, in Lavellan’s case. He’s still not the best at casting, but his emotions pour out of him in an over-abundant and unrestrained tide. That frustrates him too, she knows. He can’t reel it in the way she and Uthvir and Thenvunin all manage to. Instead he has to misdirect; learn to cover one feeling with another, if he doesn’t want to just be an open book to most any elf who meets him.

He steers clear of Pride, mostly confused by him, and of ‘weird stuff’, which is anything that makes him uncomfortable – whether he can explain the discomfort or not. But he is, of course, notably strange himself. He’s loud but he doesn’t talk much, especially not to elves he isn’t familiar with. He seems, by turns, over-sensitive and insensitive; empathetic and callous; moody and reserved.

Shortly after the magic lessons begin, Lavellan overhears a conversion between Uthvir and Bull, as she passes by Bull’s room.

“You want to be more frightening than the things which frighten you,” Uthvir says.

She pauses, and glances through the slight crack in the door. Her nanae is sitting next to Bull; a hand resting on his head, their tone one which she’s been on the receiving end of herself a fair few times.

“Well. Yeah,” Bull agrees.

“We can do that,” Uthvir tells him. “But the cost of that is becoming a frightening thing yourself. There are other ways to be brave, and to conquer fear.”

“I know,” Bull says, shifting around a bit. “I just hate being all small like this. Feels weak.”

“Look at it this way. You are going to get much bigger, I suspect. Your sister and I, however, will have to make do with being small forever.”

“You two wear it well,” Bull mumbles.

“And you happen to be a very adorable child. Which is a potent weapon that should not be underestimated either,” Uthvir counters, giving his head a gentle pat.

Bull snorts.

Lavellan leaves them to it. She spares a moment, though, to be sincerely glad that it was Uthvir who won her in that tournament; and that it was Thenvunin they brought her to, when they were uncertain of what to do with it all.

Bull will be alright, she thinks.

He managed to fall in with the right crowd.


	25. Rumours

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From a prompt asking after the speculation surrounding Thenvunin and Uthvir.

When the rumours start out, of course, they are of a simplistic sort.

‘Uthvir took Thenvunin to bed’ they go. ‘The hunter was disappointed in their prey.’

This new is a bit of an interesting tidbit, but not anything particularly surprising. More something worth snickering over, when there is nothing better to talk about. Of course a hunter took a pretty elf to their bed; of course Thenvunin, who already has something of a lackluster reputation, was a bit of a dead fish.

‘Looks are not everything’, the conclusion generally is.

But then it happens again.

`Making certain it was not just a fluke`, most of the gossips generally agree. Boredom, perhaps, could also be to blame. Even pride might be the culprit, as a hunter could strive to see their partner submit more eagerly and ably under their touch.

The rumours do not truly begin to take hold until it becomes a fairly consistent trend. Should the high ranking elves of Mythal and Andruil have reason to cross paths, it seems, then often as not, there will be some tale to tell of how Uthvir took Thenvunin to bed, and Thenvunin was disappointing, once again.

“Perhaps the hunter is a masochist,” some suggest.

“Perhaps Thenvunin is blackmailing them,” others suppose.

“You would think if he was, he would rather see it spread around that he was _skilled_  in bed,” goes the counter argument, to that.

“Perhaps Thenvunin is not actually as described in such matters,” a few muse. “Perhaps he is quite good, in fact; but Uthvir only puts around that he is otherwise so that no one else will swoop in upon their prize.”

Hunters can be jealous, after all. Just like their lady.

A few intrepid souls endeavour to test that theory. But reports come back that, no, it seems; Thenvunin truly is not much to speak of. 

And then the gossip mill strikes gold, when Uthvir wins that poor little baby from that tournament. Much is said, covertly, to question Andruil’s… _wisdom_  in determining the owner of the child in such a fashion; and then again in letting her red hunter have the girl. But when Uthvir takes the baby to Thenvunin to help them raise it, all manner of speculation erupts.

“Why Thenvunin?” some wonder. “Surely there are other high-ranking hunters who would be pleased to take on such an endeavour with them.”

“Perhaps Thenvunin really _is_  blackmailing them,” some speculate again. It seems all the likelier, then, when considering the valuable opportunity of raising a child.

At least, it is agreed, Thenvunin will likely make a better parent than he does a bed partner. The poor little baby might be able to get some proper looking after with him. And indeed, the trio make a strange but charming family, as they attend festivals and make public appearances together; the little girl growing year by year, and her caretakers seem to fit into their strange dance with another. The beautiful swan of Mythal’s gardens, and the sharp-eyed hawk of Andruil’s hunting grounds. 

 _But the pretty waterfowl has ensnared himself the raptor,_  most everyone agrees. Somehow, despite his notorious prickliness, and lackluster sexual reputation, and a romantic reputation that has not fared much better over the years, Thenvunin has - by all appearances - used looks alone to win himself a family.

Or so it goes for the first little while.

But there is no denying that a beautiful elf seems even more appealing still when they are a doting and accomplished parent. Many high and mid ranking followers of Mythal, and even of other evanuris, begin to look towards Thenvunin with a new eye. He is a good father, it is agreed. Any elf thinking of petitioning for parenthood themselves might be lucky to win him over into joining with them. With that rank and reputation… and it is not precisely as if he is hard on the eyes…

Well.

The red hunter has always had a fair number of admirers, but those, too, begin to change in tone. Perhaps Uthvir is not quite so inconstant as supposed. Perhaps they, too, might make a petition in this direction more successful, once their current child is grown and their arrangement with Thenvunin reaches its end.

Speculations rise up as their daughter approaches her majority. 

But it is not until well after Andruil’s death has been mourned, and then word of the pair’s marriage begins to spread, that the tale becomes something of a sweeping love story. _It seems so obvious now,_  the gossips think, as Uthvir and Thenvunin dance their way through the autumn festival steps, entwined in such perfect contrast with one another. The first autumn festival to be deemed acceptable in the wake of Andruil’s passing. 

 _It seems so obvious now. Why do you keep going back to bed with someone who offers little appeal?_  the former speculators muse. _Of course it was a romance. Love at first sight, perhaps. The gallant swan knight charming the wild and deadly red hunter._

The romantics sigh.

The artists take up a new trend of juxtaposed lovers as waterfowl and birds of prey.

And when they have their second child, well.

By that point, the gossips are not terribly surprised.


	26. Pride

Lavellan is quite possibly Pride’s favourite person.

He remembers when he first glimpsed her, coming in from a long trip abroad to deliver a report to Mythal. He recalls the way her gaze had fallen on him. The brief flare of surprise, and wonder, and excitement, and sorrow, inexplicably mingling together as she took in his form, before she tamped down on that strange reaction.

He had wondered if she had heard of him, perhaps. The Spirit of Pride, and his failed quest, and his subsequent embodiment. He had wondered if people spoke of him beyond the circles he already knew. And so he had sought her out, even after she had left.

And he had been glad for that decision, as it happened. Lavellan is clever and kind, beautiful and resourceful. She speaks her mind, and is not afraid to argue with him. But she is also courteous and compassionate; enough to draw the spirit to her with some frequency.

It had not taken Pride too long at all to know that he wished to court her. And he does not regret that decision, not at all; even though he had not been aware, just then, of who she was related to. Many elves were not related to anyone at all. But of course, Waking-born are.

That _Thenvunin_  somehow managed to raise someone like _Lavellan_ is… baffling, at times.

That _Uthvir_  managed to raise anyone at all without getting impatient and eviscerating them is even more of a mystery. Though the hunter does, as befitting a parent, make special exceptions for their daughter. So Pride supposes he should credit them that much.

Still.

They are terrifying.

He does not think them any less terrifying when they happen upon in Mythal’s Arlathan estate, one evening, after he has just finished attending his duties there. The former hunter is also present for some… purpose or another, it seems. Pride sees them in the hall leading towards the residential chambers, and pauses; attempting to, at the least, be polite to his beloved’s parent.

“Uthvir,” he greets, with a nod.

The former looks at him. Then they pause, seemingly to consider something. Their gaze trails carefully up Pride’s form, in a manner that makes him think they are cataloguing ever weak point in his armour, or the vital veins beneath his clothing.

Likely, they are.

“Well. If it is not the pretty little wolf,” Uthvir replies, sauntering closer. “All by your lonesome? Such a shame. So am I.”

Pride is… not certain what to make of that tone.

The former hunter moves to stand just a little too close. Their gaze darts towards his collar, and more specifically, his neck.

“Is your family not with you?” Pride asks. At this point, he thinks, he would even take an interruption from Thenvunin, storming in and making some ridiculous demand or another.

“No,” Uthvir says, tilting their head. “Were you hoping to see my daughter? Angling for a fortuitous evening?”

Pride catches their meaning, and stiffens. His mind briefly diverts towards the prospect of… but of course, they have not progressed far enough in their courtship to… and he would _never…_

 _“_ I would not presume upon her in such a fashion!” he assures Uthvir.

Uthvir shrugs.

“Calm down. I am not Thenvunin. Hunters have a different way of looking at these things,” they assure him. Reaching out, then, they close their fingers around his chin. Pride’s eyes widen as he feels the sharp points of their nails press at his skin. “If you were looking for an evening fun, I believe I could show you a thing or two.”

His mind blanks for a few cold, awkward seconds.

What does he do? If he refuses, they might take offence. But he outranks them, so their offence should not be considerable. But they are Lavellan’s nanae, and she loves them, and their opinion on Pride might sway her own. But she is not one to let the opinions of others dissuade her, not even when she loves them, not if she disagrees. But _would_  she disagree? 

There is, Pride concludes, very likely a subtle and delicate way of disengaging from this situation that would not overtly offend Uthvir.

But he is far too unsettled to think of it.

In a flail of panic, he transforms into a wolf, nearly skids into a wall, and takes off down the corridor at a dead run.


	27. Kisses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by some of Pyrrhy's lovely art on tumblr!

Uthvir is very fond of Thenvunin’s lips.

They are not too plush and not too thin. They part, beautifully, at just the right touch. They twist when Thenvunin scowls, or sneers, or bites against them with his own teeth, trying to suppress sounds of pleasure before they can sneak past him. Under Uthvir’s teeth, they redden, and bead with droplets of blood. Under Uthvir’s lips, they swell swiftly beneath a multitude of kisses. They taste, at times, of sweet summer drinks, and cold winter treats, and bloodwine from the hunters’ hosting tables. They spread into soft, open circles on those occasions where Thenvunin’s restraint at last fails him. Breathy gasps passing them, until Uthvir cannot resist leaning in and pressing their mouth alongside his, whispering praise and admiration in terms both base and excessive.

Thenvunin’s restraint no longer fails him so often, though. Chiefly because, these days, he is less retrained. And so Uthvir watches through hooded eyes as those lips spread in breathless gasps, and moans, and cries, and even pleas. They trail their nails down the side of his neck, and then run their thumb across those lips. They claim it with their own again, so hungry for him, for every sound he makes. The more he makes, it seems, the more they want. They have become a glutton for his kisses, and his breaths. For the feel of his skin, even more than he ever accused them of being.

And those lips are sweet, too, when they are settled into their evening covers, and Thenvunin leans over and runs a hand up their hip, and then kisses them himself. Gentle and careful, simplistic in their expressed affections. They trail over Uthvir’s cheek, and rest against the corner of their jaw, and Thenvunins fingers slip between their legs. They settle over their own again, as Thenvunin slips inside of them.

And it does not take games or tricks or toys, it seems, to send Uthvir into breathless gasps. Their sensitive skin firing at the gentle caresses. Something aching, twisting in their chest as Thenvunin whispers his own untoward praise. As his hips rock, gently, and his mouth trails over their features, brushing affection and love and other things that Uthvir can scarcely comprehend the sincerity of. They are the one who has to try and hold back, then, as Thenvunin slides in and out of them, and the sensations snap like warm currents of electricity through them. As the weight of his body over theirs, and the press of his skin, has their every sense on edge.

But they are not so reserved, in the end. They pant, and gasp, and spread their legs wider, or wrap them around him. They run their fingers through his hair, and pull him in. Silently pleading for more. More kisses, More touches. More of the warm rush of affection, until they cannot take it anymore. Until, sometimes, they have to turn it around, and pour it back onto him. Pinning him beneath them and claiming his lips. Claiming the whole of him.

Thenvunin.

_Thenvunin._

They angle their mouth over his, possessive and greedy beyond measure. They want him so badly, they have to give themselves to him, in turn. Because it is the only way to avoid becoming broken by it. Transforming into some malevolent, overwhelming creature, so driven to have him that they break him instead.

“Mine,” they claim, as they take him, fiercely. “My Thenvunin.”

Thenvunin clutches them, wanting to be owned, and to own. Beautiful as his head tips back, and his lips part to breathe their name. Baring his throat, and the rapid thrumming of his pulse, so that they can sink their teeth into it.

_Leave a mark._

Their spine twinges.

They lave their tongue over it, and make the blood sing. Coax the pain to pleasure, and do not take what is not offered.

 _I am not like that,_  they think. They are not…

“Uthvir,” Thenvunin breathes, again, and he leans into their touch. Sated and lovely and loving.

They are so very fond of all of him, come to it.

But however much he is theirs, is only by way of what he has decided to give them. And he could take it back, they know. All of it. He could leave tomorrow, and Uthvir would hate it, and would want it to be otherwise. But they would not stop him. Bonds or no bonds, they would not stop him.

They lean into him, and kiss him, and caress him. Nip his earlobes and bury their nose into his hair, and take his hand and kiss the pulse point of his wrist. Feel the beat of his heart.

_Mine._

But also…

_Yours._


	28. In Motion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From a prompt requesting Uthvir handling someone creeping on Thenvunin! We're jumping back chronologically.

Thenvunin is most beautiful in motion.

Not standing stiff and still like a decorated statue. Though he is far from unattractive like that, of course. But Thenvunin is, by far, most beautiful when he is in motion. When he is working his way through a practice yard, weapon drawn, movements purposeful and decisive. When he is caught in the midst of an intense argument, aggravated enough to actually gesture and pace. When he storms through hallways on some intent mission or other.

When he dances.

Uthvir watches from the sidelines as Thenvunin dances his way through the spring festival. They have danced little tonight themselves, though Lavellan stole a few rounds from them at the beginning of the evening, before sweeping off with her papa, and then heading with some of the younger festival-goers and spirits to watch the fireworks shine through Sylaise’s palace. Thenvunin dances sporadically, socializing as is his wont, mingling with some high-ranking attendants of Elgar’nan’s and Sylaise’s. His cup is filled almost as soon as it can empty, and as the evening wears on he grows looser. Lighter. His shoulders relax a bit, and his dances ease away from tight steps to more fluid, intuitive movements. Citrine and peridot clips sparkle from his hair, and the leafy folds of his sleeves trail artfully away from his gestures.

Something in Uthvir clenches, watching him. Wanting him.

“Ask him to dance,” a soft voice whispers.

They look to one side, and sure enough, a spirit has flitted by. Or in this case, slunk up from the ground, it seems. Shimmering pink and pale, with a soft, steady gaze. It looks delicate, to Uthvir. Fragile and faded. Though it feels sturdy enough when it loops a tendril around their ankle.

They draw their leg back, and give it a kick.

“Off,” they say.

The spirit withdraws its touch, looking oddly petulant about the whole thing.

“You should dance,” it whispers. “It would be so lovely.”

The hunter assesses the stray creature. There only a few options for what sort of spirit it could be, and something in them clenches further as they match the traits and inclination and put together an answer that… is complicated.

“Leave me be, spirit. This is not your concern, and you are unwelcome here,” they tell it. “And if you stay long enough, I might recall all the uses a hunter has for tender, stray spirits.”

The spirit’s petulance gives way to some wavering uncertainty, and fear. After a few moments, it does as advised, and heads off. Uthvir lets out a breath of relief once it is gone. It would not do to be seen consorting with _that_ sort of creature. They scan the crowd to see if anyone witnesses their little conversation, but there are spirits aplenty, and most more conspicuous than shimmering creatures slinking up from floors to play matchmaker.

After a few moments, they relax a bit more. Their gaze lands on Thenvunin again, to find him dancing with an elf they do not recognize. This one is a man, more presumptuous than his previous partners. Taller than Thenvunin himself, with a sly sort of aura, and Elgar’nan’s markings on his face. Thenvunin’s movements are languid.

Possibly _too_ languid.

Uthvir’s eyes narrow as his head tilts a bit, and he missteps; and his partner catches him. Pulling him too close, as one of their hands supports Thenvunin’s waist, and the dips down to clutch at his backside. Thenvunin makes a protest, and pushes at the man’s shoulder. Uthvir snorts as the blow lands with more weight than they would normally expect Thenvunin to employ, under such circumstances, and nearly sends both himself and his dance partner sprawling.

The servant of Elgar’nan’s expression twists, as they keep one hand on him and recover from the strike.

Uthvir moves towards the pair. The servant closes a hand over Thenvunin’s wrist, employing what seems to be his own considerable strength, as Thenvunin blinks blearily. His aura wavers a bit. Uthvir glances, and cannot see the goblet he had been drinking from. But it would not surprise them, unduly, if someone had seen fit to sneak something _extra_ in it.

The back of their mouth sours with the recollection of acrid tastes, and hazy senses.

They move up behind the servant of Elgar’nan, as the man puts on a show of laughing, and tries to get Thenvunin to lean into him.

“We should get you some water,” he says.

“I will see to that,” Uthvir interjects.

They fold one arm, and idly raise a hand as if to examine the claws of their gauntlet, as their target turns and Thenvunin blinks at them, and lets out a breath that sounds disarmingly relieved. He is the only one who looks pleased at their sudden arrival, however.

Elgar’nan’s servant scowls. If he is taller than Thenvunin, he is easily overshadowing Uthvir. But then, most do.

“Hunter,” he acknowledges. “Why should I let you take him?”

“’s Uthvir,” Thenvunin slurs.

Uthvir keeps their gaze on their enemy, and tilts their head a bit.

“Have you even seen lions and hyenas, friend?” they ask. “Big felines beasts and wolf-like predators. The hyenas often spend a lot of time and energy hunting down their prey. And the lions sit in the tall grass, and they watch the hunts. They watch the hyenas work. And when it is done they come, and they take the hyenas prey. Tonight, I am the lion. And you, you pathetic, low-ranking little wretch, are going to wander off with your tail between your legs. If you would like to have anything at all between them come dawn.”

They flex their fingers, and flare menace.

The man withdraws with sensible speed, barely taking the time to feign innocence before he vanishes into the crowds. Uthvir watches him go a moment, memorizing his features and the way he moves, the more distinctive qualities to his aura, before Thenvunin begins to waver on his feet. Then they step forward and slip their own arm around him.

“You did not dance with me,” Thenvunin says, leaning heavily against them.

They blink up at him. He is scowling. It makes them smirk, in return.

“Did you wish me to?” they ask. Then they have to look away, as the begin navigating him out of the open square, and towards one of the drinking fountains. He curls around them, staggering, one of his arms slung over their shoulders and his nose buried in their hair.

“No,” he mumbles, lips grazing the tip of their ear. “Would’ve been… would have… I do not remember. Indecorous?”

Uthvir chuckles.

“Naturally. Two high-ranking elves dancing at a festival. What a scandal.”

Thenvunin hums.

“It is a secret,” he says. “I want to dance with you. Secretly.”

Uthvir’s chest clenches again, as the words drift down over their ear and seem to slip below their collar. Settling like the warm puffs of Thenvunin’s breath against their skin. Their steps falter for a half second. But of course, they _are_ a fair dancer.

“You are even more drugged than I thought,” they conclude, recovering with a wry glance, as they get their besotted lover settled onto one of the white, spiral-patterned outdoor benches. They fetch a glass from the fountain and fill it with water, and press it into Thenvunin’s hand.

“Not thirsty,” Thenvunin says.

“Drink it anyway,” Uthvir replies. “You will feel better if you do.”

Thenvunin scowls at his glass.

But after a moment he does lift it up to his lips, and start to drink. And then it seems he changes his mind about his thirst, once the pure water hits his tongue. He downs nearly the entire glass in one go. When he finishes, Uthvir takes it from him, and refills it again. He accepts the second offering without complaint, and makes it through nearly four glasses before giving up and lolling against the back of the bench. Drawing in long, open-mouthed breaths. His cheeks are flushed, and his collar slightly rumpled, dipping low towards the edge of one of his shoulders. There are better contexts, Uthvir decides, in which to see such a lovely sight.

They reach over, and carefully rest a hand on his head.

A whisper, and a small wash of healing magic falls over him. Easing what it can.  A proper healer could probably snap and have the whole situation reversed. But Uthvir cannot spot anyone so trained in their immediate vicinity.

Even so. Thenvunin sighs, and blinks, and then stiffens a bit. He straightens his collar. Which probably means he’s recovered himself enough to feel embarrassed.

Uthvir smirks.

“Do not fix yourself up on my account, Thenvunin. I was quite enjoying the view,” they inform him.

“Beast,” Thenvunin hisses. Then he presses a hand to his forehead, and winces.

“I think you over-drank,” they say, withdrawing their touch.

That makes his irritation double, but he shifts uncomfortably on the bench in a fashion that several glasses of wine and then several glasses of water will undoubtedly lead to. After an awkward moment of obvious indecision, he stands up.

“I must go and straighten myself out. Being pawed at by that ape on the dance floor, and then manhandled by you, has put me out-of-sorts,” he asserts.

Uthvir extends an elbow towards him.

Thenvunin looks at it as if they have just produced a live scorpion from the folds of their armour, and then scowls.

“What are you doing?” he demands.

“Did you not wish me to escort you?” they ask. “I believe you asked me for a dance. It would be impolite to vanish off into the evening crowd in light of that. Really, Thenvunin. You may say what you please, but I am not so ill-mannered as all that.”

Thenvunin’s scowl turns into a sneer.

“As if your motives are so courteous,” he snipes back. But then his gaze darts towards the throng of revellers, angled upwards to search out some of the taller heads. And a few awkward moments, he reaches out, and threads a hand through Uthvir’s elbow. His steps are still somewhat less than graceful as they set down the winding little path towards the public facilities.

“You put me in an awkward position with that. Had I declined, then _I_ would have seemed the impolite one,” Thenvunin sniffs.

“Truly, most manipulative of me,” Uthvir replies.

“I would not be surprised if you were to accost me within the wash house itself, given your predilections.”

At that, they glance at him, and shake their head just a little.

“I still owe you a dance, as I said. While I would not object, I suspect you would be reluctant to perform the steps with me once I have torn those pretty fabrics straight from you. So, that will have to wait until after, I believe.”

They wink.

Thenvunin sputters impressively all rest of the way down the path. But when they emerge again from the wash house, his steps are steadier. And still, he threads a hand through Uthvir’s arm, as they head back up to where the musicians are playing. He voices only a few grumbling protestations of decorum and manipulation as they settle into position from one another. Not a complex dance, though. Not like the ones from earlier in the evening.

Still. Thenvunin is beautiful in motion.

Uthvir finds it is not so difficult to move with him.

~

When the evening is drawing towards its end, they fetch Lavellan. Uthvir cites business at Andruil’s holdings, helping organize the city clean up, and leaves them both at Mythal’s estate. They hug their daughter goodnight, and then, on a whim born of an evening full of some unexpected turns, they reach up and take Thenvunin’s chin between their fingers.

They pull him down for a kiss. He lets out a breath of surprise, and they swallow it, pressing their lips to his in a move that begins as hunger, but somehow transforms almost into reassurance when it all comes together. Firm and bereft of the usual nips and tongue.

Thenvunin blinks rapidly.

Then he straightens out of their grasp, his hands fluttering oddly for a moment before he folds them across his chest.

“What was that?” he demands.

Uthvir raises an eyebrow.

“A taste. To tide you over until I return,” they say.

They suppose, all in all, that they do not often kiss Thenvunin unless it is a prelude to other acts.

_And why would you?_

“As if I need such a thing! Now you are taunting me with your lustful designs, and in front of our child no less!” Thenvunin hisses. His face is still flushed, though, and his voice somewhat awkward and high, before he turns and marches off after their daughter. Who is standing just at the estate’s entryway, looking amused.

Uthvir nods to her, and leaves her papa in her hands as they head back into the city.

It takes a while to track down that servant of Elgar’nan’s.

A few vague inquiries gets them started, and then a few stray spirits help matters along. They find out that he’s in the city’s local housing, rather than either the peacekeeper barracks or Sylaise’s guest accommodations, which is very promising. A local will have a reputation. They are barely into the lower-ranking districts when they pause.

The air is sour with a note of fear. Lingering and muddled, close enough that even in an evening of festivities and high energy, they can follow it to the source, and know it will not be far. There they find their quarry. The man has found a servant of Sylaise to replace his attendant of Mythal, and the fear is coming from them, leaking past their delirium as he gropes at them with obvious intent.

“Such a shame,” Uthvir drawls.

The man stops.

Sylaise’s little servant looks at them with muddled hope.

“Go. Away,” their attacker growls. But it is all deep voice coming up from large lungs in a barrel chest.

“It is so difficult, to have such tastes and no talent or rank to force others to accommodate them for you,” Uthvir says. “Not even enough to barter for the services of a professional, hmm? Life must be very hard for you, Hyena.”

“I get by,” the man snaps, pushing his victim to the ground before he rounds towards Uthvir. “Are you going to stand there and watch? Or did you want to take this one too?”

Uthvir glances at the disheveled figure on the ground, before flicking their gaze back up.

“Them?” they ask. “No. I came here for you.”

The man’s gaze turns uncertain.

Uthvir crooks a sharp finger at him.

“Come here, _servant,”_ they snap.

“I serve Elgar’nan,” he asserts, clearly beginning to piece together the precariousness of his position at last. Alone with only his would-be victim and a high-ranking hunter, in the lower city streets, where no one of equal sway to Uthvir is likely to be found.

“And how much of his favour do you imagine you have?” they ask. “When I tell him you were taking what have no right to, will he be swayed by the markings on your face? Or will he be enraged by your presumptions, and burn you on the spot?”

The man hesitates a moment longer, his fear growing.

Then he takes a single step forward.

Uthvir crooks their finger again.

“Closer,” they command.

The man stalks forwards, angrily, and then stops directly in front of them.

“Kneel,” they say, sharply.

The little servant of Sylaise gets onto wobbly, disoriented knees, on the ground behind him. Uthvir’s gaze darts over to them, and they feel an odd pang of sympathy at what is clearly a learned response. The man, on the other hand, takes his time before finally bending to their demand. He sinks down, until he is on the ground.

And at an adequate height for Uthvir to close a hand around his throat.

Immediately, he grasps at their gauntlet, as their fingers dig into his skin.

“One twitch,” they say. “And I could rip your throat right out, you worthless sack of skin. I am very tempted to. But I am not quite certain if you are worth the trouble I would have to go to in order to clean up the mess. I am debating that. Perhaps I will simply take a piece of you, instead. An ear, maybe. A finger. Or something softer. Perhaps I shall leave to chance, and rip open your stomach, and claim a length of intestines. And see if a healer gets to you before you bleed to death. But if you live, and you ever do something like this again, I will know. I will take my little totem, and I will use it to make your blood boil in its veins.”

Uthvir emphasizes their point by heating the blood spilling over their gauntlet. The man chokes on his panic, trying to break free and failing utterly. He is not even a combatant; cannot even summon a wisp of offensive magic more substantial than a candle’s flickering flame.

They let him go, and reach up, and tear off his left ear.

The man cries out, clutching his head and throat and attempting to flee down the road. Uthvir lets him go, and watching him leave a trail of blood and calls for help in his wake.

They are doubtful too many residents nearby will respond. This is, after all, the place the man chose to take his own victim.

The little servant of Sylaise, who is shaking, and staring with wide, glassy eyes at the ear in their hand.

Ah.

They put it into their belt pocket, and wipe off the blood on their hands before taking a few steps forward. The little servant does not move, though their trembling intensifies many times over as Uthvir bends down in front of them. They have a similar look to Thenvunin, if smaller. Not much bigger than Uthvir’s daughter, in fact, though obviously much older. There is a bruise on their cheek and a rip in their skirt, and it is clear they are barely coherent.

Uthvir sighs, then straightens. They scoop up the little servant, who shakes and shakes, but is silent as they are carried back up the road and into the rainbow-hued lights that lead towards Sylaise’s guest housing district. The hunter has no idea if their burden belongs there, but it is generally open to Sylaise’s servants, and so perhaps the best place.

When they get within sight of it, an unfamiliar elf calls out.

Within moments, then, several servants of Sylaise have gathered around Uthvir like a pack of irate cats, clearly torn between the deferential respect which rank difference requires of them, and worry over the state of one of their own.  The boldest among them steps forward, and Uthvir easily relinquishes the little servant to her arms.

She looks ill. And when her gaze flits to them, it is hard.

“Thank you for at least bringing them back in once piece, I suppose. Revered Hunter,” she says.

Uthvir smirks.

“Naturally. I am not a _complete_ monster,” they assert. The obvious assumption of the scenario is that they are to blame for the abduction.

Under the circumstances, that assumption may as well stand.

They wave a farewell to the stony eyes of Sylaise’s servants, and turn, and head back towards Mythal’s estate.

Suddenly they very much need a bath, they think.

It seems they will be disappointing Thenvunin this evening after all.


End file.
